Konyk v. PA State Police

In 2005, Appellant Steven Konyk entered into a negotiated plea agreement with federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania whereby he pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography. At the time, Megan’s Law III was in effect. Based on the offense to which Appellant pled guilty, that enactment required Appellant to register as a sex offender for ten years upon his release from prison. In the context of the plea agreement, Appellant understood and took into account this ten-year period when he pleaded guilty. Appellant was released from federal custody in March 2007 and began registering his address with PSP as required under Megan’s Law III. Since then, he satisfied all requirements imposed on him at sentencing and has complied with Megan’s Law. In 2012, before Appellant completed his ten-year registration period, Megan’s Law III was replaced by Megan’s Law IV, also referred to as the Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act (“SORNA”). At that time, Megan’s Law III registrants became subject to SORNA’s registration requirements. Appellant filed in the Commonwealth Court’s original jurisdiction an amended Petition for Review (the “Petition”), seeking mandamus relief in the form of a directive to PSP to conform Appellant’s registration status to the requirements of Megan’s Law III rather than SORNA. He asserted that: as a result of his plea agreement, a contract was formed between himself and the Commonwealth; the contract incorporated the ten-year period reflected under Megan’s Law III; and retroactive application of SORNA’s 15-year period would breach the contract. The issue this case presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s review thus centered on whether a contract-based cause of action existed in Appellant’s favor to enforce the ten-year period where subsequent state legislation increased the registration period to fifteen years and the Commonwealth was not a party to the plea agreement. The Supreme Court affirmed the Commonwealth Court: “We realize this puts individuals in Appellant’s circumstances in a difficult position, as they have entered into a plea agreement when Megan’s Law III’s registration periods were in effect, and they cannot secure relief on a contract-based claim from either the federal or state government. Still, such individuals should be aware that the federal government is not responsible for administering Megan’s Law in Pennsylvania and, as such, cannot validly agree to be obligated by a specific contractual provision relating to the length of the individual’s post-release sex-offender registration.” View "Konyk v. PA State Police" on Justia Law