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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
PENNSYLVANIA
Appellee
v.
JOHN A. SPANOS,
Appellant No. 1070 WDA 2014
Appeal from the Order Entered June 2, 2014
In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County
Criminal Division at No(s): CP-02-CR-0000803-2007
BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., LAZARUS, J., and MUNDY, J.
MEMORANDUM BY BENDER, P.J.E.: FILED APRIL 13, 2015
Appellant, John A. Spanos, appeals from the trial court’s June 2, 2014
order denying his petition seeking enforcement of the terms of his guilty
plea. At the time of his guilty plea, Appellant was required to register under
Megan’s Law for a term of ten years. Subsequent legislative action has
increased Appellant’s registration requirement to a term of twenty-five
years. After careful review, we affirm.
Appellant entered an open guilty plea before the trial court on July 11,
2007, to two offenses,1 “in relation to a series of online chats of a sexual
nature between [Appellant] and a Special Agent from the Child Predator Unit
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1
Appellant pled guilty to attempted unlawful contact with a minor, 18
Pa.C.S. §§ 901, 6318; and criminal use of a communication facility, 18
Pa.C.S. § 7512.
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of the Office of the Attorney General posing as a 13-year-old girl.” Trial
Court Opinion (TCO), 9/2/14, at 1. On November 2, 2007, the court
sentenced Appellant to five years’ probation. Pursuant to the version of
Megan’s Law in effect at that time, Appellant was required to register as a
sex offender for ten years.2 No direct appeal or post-conviction petition was
ever filed.
On December 20, 2012, a new version of Megan’s Law became
effective, bringing Pennsylvania in compliance with the federal Sexual
Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.10 et
seq. Under SORNA, Appellant is retroactively required to register as a sex
offender for twenty-five years. On February 19, 2013, in light of this
development, Appellant filed a counseled “Petition for Habeas Corpus and/or
Seeking to Enforcement [sic] of a Plea Agreement” and, subsequently, a
“Supplement to Petition Seeking to Enforce Plea Agreement” amending his
initial filing. These documents are hereinafter referred to, collectively, as
“the Petition.”
____________________________________________
2
Prior to the imposition of the ten-year registration requirements, and
before sentencing, Appellant was ordered to undergo an assessment to
determine whether he is a sexually violent predator (SVP) under Megan’s
Law, a designation that would have required him to register as a sex
offender for life. The trial court ultimately found that Appellant is not an
SVP.
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The trial court denied the Petition on June 2, 2014. Appellant filed a
timely appeal, as well as a timely Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement. The trial
court issued its Rule 1925(a) opinion on September 2, 2014.
Appellant now presents the following question for our review:
Did the trial court err in refusing to impose the period of
registration as a sex offender under SORNA (Megan’s Law) that
was initially imposed and agreed upon, such that [Appellant]
may only register for a 10 year period?
Appellant’s Brief, at 5 (unnecessary capitalization omitted).
Appellant asserts that because he agreed to report under Megan’s Law
for a period of ten years at the time he pled and was sentenced, he should
not be required to report for twenty-five years as dictated by SORNA. He
bases this claim on this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v.
Hainesworth, 82 A.3d 444 (Pa. Super. 2013)(en banc), appeal denied, 95
A.3d 276 (Pa. 2014).
Hainesworth pled guilty to sexual offenses under the version of
Megan’s Law in effect prior to the implementation of SORNA. Hainsworth
was charged with multiple offenses, one of which carried Megan’s Law
reporting requirements upon conviction, aggravated indecent assault (AIA).
However, pursuant to a plea agreement, the Commonwealth withdrew the
AIA charge, and Appellant pled guilty to three counts each of statutory
sexual assault and indecent assault, as well as a single count of criminal use
of a communication facility. None of the pled-to offenses carried Megan’s
Law reporting requirements at the time of Hainesworth’s plea. Had
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Hainesworth been convicted of AIA at that time, however, he would have
been required to register under Megan’s Law for life.
SORNA was implemented in Pennsylvania two years after Hainesworth
entered his plea. Under SORNA, Hainesworth’s conviction for indecent
assault required him to register under Megan’s Law for twenty-five years
because he was still under supervision for that offense when SORNA became
effective. Consequently, Hainesworth sought to terminate his probation in
anticipation of SORNA’s implementation. The trial court denied that request;
however, the court “entered an order stating that Hainesworth was not
subject to the registration requirements of SORNA” as a matter of
fundamental fairness and pursuant to due process principles. Id. at 446.
The Commonwealth appealed from that order.
On appeal, the Hainesworth Court first recognized the importance of
plea bargains to the administration of criminal justice:
The reality of the criminal justice system is that nearly all
criminal cases are disposed of by plea bargains: “[n]inety-seven
percent of federal convictions and ninety-four percent of state
convictions are the result of guilty pleas.” Missouri v. Frye, ––
– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 1399, 1407, 182 L.Ed.2d 379 (2012)
(internal citations omitted). Plea bargaining “is not some
adjunct to the criminal justice system; it is the criminal justice
system.” Id. Accordingly, it is critical that plea agreements are
enforced, “to avoid any possible perversion of the plea
bargaining system.” Commonwealth v. Fruehan, 384
Pa.Super. 156, 557 A.2d 1093, 1094 (1989) (internal citations
omitted).
Hainesworth, 82 A.3d at 449.
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Given the importance of enforcing plea bargains, and the serious
nature of registration and reporting requirements under Megan’s Law, the
Hainesworth Court then concluded that “[i]n negotiating a plea that will not
require him to register as a sex offender, the defendant trades a non-trivial
panoply of rights in exchange for his not being subject to a non-trivial
restriction. Fundamental fairness dictates that this bargain be enforced.”
Id. at 449. The Hainesworth Court relied, in part, on the decision of the
United States Supreme Court in Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257
(1971), wherein the high Court ruled that “when a plea rests in any
significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it
can be said to be part of the inducement or consideration, such promise
must be fulfilled.” Id. at 262. Because the Hainesworth Court concluded
that Hainesworth’s plea agreement had “been precisely structured so that
Hainesworth would not be subjected to a registration requirement[,]” the
Hainesworth Court upheld the trial court’s order refusing to retroactively
apply SORNA’s Megan’s Law registration requirements to him. Id. at 448.
Instantly, Appellant contends the Hainesworth rule should apply to
his case as well. He asserts that the record in this case demonstrates that
the terms of his plea were understood to carry a 10-year registration
requirement, which has been retroactively extended pursuant to SORNA.
However, the trial court rejected this claim, finding that “the record in its
entirely suggests that [Appellant’s] plea was not made to exempt [him] from
any more lengthy registration requirements, as he pled guilty to all charges
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and did not bargain for the withdrawal of any more serious charges.” TCO,
at 4. Indeed, there is no evidence of record that Appellant negotiated the
terms of his plea. Rather, the record shows that he entered an open guilty
plea before the trial court. Accordingly, there was no ‘bargain’ upon which
Appellant could be said to have relied on in entering his plea with regard to
his Megan’s Law obligations. Furthermore, Appellant, unlike Hainesworth,
pled guilty to charges which carried pre-SORNA registration requirements.
Hainesworth negotiated a plea whereby he was not subject to any long-term
supervision under Megan’s Law before the implementation of SORNA.
Appellant suggests that Commonwealth v. Partee, 86 A.3d 245 (Pa.
Super. 2014), supports application of the Hainesworth rule to his case.
However, the holding in that case was that Partee was “not entitled to
specific performance of a negotiated plea bargain that he subsequently
breached.” Partee, 86 A.3d at 246. Thus, technically, Partee is not on-
point. Nevertheless, Appellant asserts that the Partee court recognized, or
stands for the proposition, that in reviewing whether the Hainesworth rule
applies, we must look “at the totality of the circumstances surrounding the
guilty plea[,]” and not just whether the explicit terms of a plea bargain
demonstrate whether the Megan’s Law implications were negotiated.
Appellant’s Brief, at 12.
We agree with Appellant that we must examine the context of the
whole record, and not just explicit terms expressed in a written plea
agreement, in determining whether the Hainesworth rule applies in a given
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case. Nevertheless, Appellant is still not entitled to relief. The totality of
circumstances surrounding Appellant’s plea does not justify application of
the Hainesworth rule, nor does Partee suggest that it should. Partee, like
Hainesworth, entered a negotiated plea with the Commonwealth. In this
case, however, there are no terms in a negotiated plea to consider because
there was no negotiated plea. Indeed, there was no evidence of any
negotiation with the Commonwealth at all.
Appellant draws our attention to some evidence that he was made
aware of his Megan’s Law obligations. For instance, during the plea process,
Appellant signed a form acknowledging his Megan’s Law registration
requirements for the crimes to which he was pleading guilty. See
Appellant’s Reply Brief, Appendix C, 1-2. However, mere awareness of the
consequences of a conviction for a Megan’s Law offense does not
automatically implicate the Hainesworth rule. Moreover, unless the
Megan’s Law implications were at least an implicit basis upon which an
agreement or bargain was reached with the Commonwealth, Hainsesworth
is not applicable. This does not necessarily require a written plea
agreement, or specific terms addressing Megan’s Law, but it does require
some evidence that the result of the plea in terms of its Megan’s Law
implications was the product of a negotiation with the Commonwealth.
Routine Megan’s law notifications given during plea or sentencing hearings
are not the product of negotiations with the Commonwealth.
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In Partee, this Court found that Partee’s “negotiated plea agreement
was structured so that he would only be subject to a ten-year rather than a
lifetime reporting requirement,” as evidenced by the fact that “[t]he two
charges carrying a lifetime registration requirement were withdrawn by the
Commonwealth as part of the negotiations, leaving Appellant subject to the
less onerous ten-year reporting requirement ….” Partee, 86 A.3d at 249.
In that regard, the circumstantial evidence that Partee’s plea was entered as
the product of a negotiation with the Commonwealth was nearly identical to
circumstances present in Hainesworth. Here, however, no charges were
dropped in exchange for Appellant’s guilty plea and there was no plea
agreement. Accordingly, we conclude that Appellant is not entitled to relief
under Hainesworth.
Order affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 4/13/2015
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