The Arizona Supreme Court on Friday overturned the conviction and seven-year prison sentence of a sex offender who failed to register with authorities when he left a halfway house and became homeless in Tucson.
The high court said in a ruling that could affect an unknown number of other convictions that lower courts were wrong in finding that 45-year-old Lynn Lavern Burbey broke the law by failing to register his address within 72 hours.
State law says sex offenders with registration requirements must report their new address within that time. But under a 2006 change in the law, people who are homeless are given 90 days to report where they are staying.
Justice Clint Bolick wrote for the unanimous court that because Burbey was a transient he fell under the 90-day rule and not the shorter requirement that led to his conviction following his 2014 arrest. "Logically, a person either has a residence or is transient, but cannot be both," Bolick wrote. ..Continued..
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