FL- Skynyrd drummer trial set

Here is a case with a set of facts that gives new meaning to the word "ODD." However, it is out of Florida so we can expect anything. Note the highlights, if anyone can figure how Florida can sustain a "Failure to Register" charge under these circumstances, I'm all ears!

8-6-2009 Florida:

Thomas Delmer Pyle faces hearing on Wednesday

Whether Thomas Delmer Pyle stays free or spends the next several years in prison may hinge on whether a judge and jury decide he had to register as a sex offender in Florida, even if he lived in another state.

The former Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer, who performed as Artimus Pyle, has been charged with failing to properly register as a sex offender and committing unlawful acts in relation to a driver's license.

He was arrested Nov. 19, 2007, and held for a day in the St. Johns County jail before he was released on $10,000 bond.

His attorneys, Craig Williams and Tom Cushman, argued Tuesday that Pyle had broken no law and the charges should be dismissed. St. Johns County Circuit Judge Wendy W. Berger denied the motion to dismiss and set Wednesday for a docket call, the last hearing before trial.

The trial is scheduled for Aug. 24 if an acceptable deal isn't worked out between the defense and prosecutors.

Pyle pleaded guilty in Duval County in 1993 to attempted capital sexual battery on a child younger than 12 and being a principal to lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 16 years old.

"He was very, very reluctant to do that," co-counsel Craig Williams said Tuesday. "But he decided he didn't want to have (the alleged victims) forced to testify."

He was sentenced to eight years probation and designated a sex offender.

After Pyle completed his probation requirements, he and his family moved from St. Johns County to Asheville, N.C., in October 2002, said co-counsel Tom Cushman.

Pyle notified the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office that he was changing addresses, Cushman said.

"When Pyle and his family relocated ... he was no longer required by law to register as a sex offender with the State of Florida," Cushman wrote in a motion to dismiss the new charge.

While living in Asheville, Pyle got a notice in 2007 to reinstate his Florida driver's license, which had been suspended in a dispute over child support payments, said Cushman.

"In fact, his obligation to pay child support in Jacksonville no longer existed because the children had become adults," according to Cushman's motion. "Pyle was eventually able to get that mistake corrected."

The error had actually been corrected, Cushman said, before the Duval County Clerk's Office mailed the license renewal notice to Pyle in North Carolina.

His client "truthfully answered the question regarding whether he had been designated a sex offender" when he filled out the paperwork for a new license in St. Augustine, said Cushman.

What Pyle didn't correct before returning to North Carolina was his former Crescent Beach address on his new driver's license.

The Department of Motor Vehicles notified the Sheriff's Office that a license had been reissued to a sex offender. A detective went to the Crescent Beach address and learned that Pyle didn't live there.

The officer left a business card; Pyle called him and said he was planning on coming back to Florida.

The defendant was arrested for failing to properly register when he returned to St. Johns County a month later.

Cushman argued Tuesday that Pyle didn't have to register until he actually changed homes.

"Pyle did not indicate in any of his conversations (with the detective) that he had already established a residence in Florida, but rather that at some unspecified time in the future he was planning on doing so," Cushman argued.

Assistant State Attorney Adam Warren said, to prove the main charge, all the state has to show Pyle is a sex offender who went to the DMV to renew his license and used an inaccurate address on the application.

This is an absurd comment by the State's attorney! In fact, laws that lead to absurd results are unconstitutional!

The state statute does not limit the registration of sex offenders to Florida residents, he argued.

Cushman suggested that the state may be putting itself in the position of requiring all sex offenders nationwide to register in Florida. ..Source.. by RICHARD PRIOR