Georgia high court says former Rome officer must register as sex offender

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From the Georgia Supreme Court, Nov. 8

WIGGINS V. THE STATE (S10A0813)

The Georgia Supreme Court has also ruled against another former police officer in his challenge of Georgia's sex offender registration law.

Paul Wiggins, Jr., formerly an officer with the Rome Police Department, claimed that the Floyd County court's requirement that he register as a sex offender as a condition of his probation was an illegal sentence because the statute authorizing it is unconstitutional. The statute requires registration of anyone convicted of "conduct which, by its nature, is a sexual offense against a minor."

According to briefs filed in the case, in the summer of 2003, Wiggins was dispatched to a Holiday Inn in Rome due to possible underage drinking. Six people, including a 16-year-old girl, were partying and another officer had already arrested two of them after finding crystal meth. Wiggins vouched for the 16-year-old, saying he knew her father, according to the briefs. At trial, the other officer testified he turned the girl over to Wiggins, who asked the girl to meet him at a convenience store. She did so, and Wiggins drove her to a nearby park where, she testified, he told her to get on the hood of his patrol car and undress. They had sex, and she testified that "it hurt." Afterward, Wiggins took her back to her car and warned her not to tell, according to prosecutors. The girl then drove to the home of friends, who testified she was "crying" and told them she'd been raped. They called 911, and she then went to the hospital where she was examined and detectives photographed the bruises on her legs. The GBI crime report positively identified the DNA as Wiggins.' Wiggins later maintained at trial that the sex was consensual.

Wiggins was charged with rape, sodomy, sexual battery, false imprisonment, cruelty to children, false writings and statements and violation of his public oath. In December 2003, a jury convicted him of child cruelty, false writings and violation of his oath of office but acquitted him of rape and the other charges. Wiggins appealed to both the Georgia Court of Appeals, which upheld his convictions, and the Georgia Supreme Court, which upheld all but the false writings conviction. In 2007, he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus – a civil proceeding that gives convicted defendants another chance to challenge their conviction – but the habeas court denied him relief. He then tried to appeal that ruling to the state Supreme Court, but this Court denied his petition. In 2009, Wiggins filed a "Motion to Strike Invalid Condition of Probation and/or Correct Illegal Sentence." The trial court denied his motion, and he again appealed to the Supreme Court. In his latest appeal, Wiggins argued that state law includes in the definition of a sexual offense a number of crimes, but cruelty to children is not one of them. Wiggins furthermore claimed that the registration requirement violates his constitutional rights, because the lifelong punishment exceeds the maximum sentence he could have received for the crimes he was convicted of.

In today's unanimous decision, Justice Robert Benham writes that the jury found Wiggins had committed a sexual offense against a minor, "when it found appellant guilty of the crime of cruelty to children, which was described in the indictment as maliciously causing a child under the age of 18 cruel and excessive mental pain 'by requiring her to touch his penis and requiring her to permit him to touch her breast.'" The high court rejects Wiggins' constitutional challenges, citing its earlier decision this year in Hollie v. State, in which it ruled that lifetime registration is required by the sex offender registration statute and does not exceed the maximum penalty for the crimes a defendant was convicted of. Furthermore, "[t]he sex-offender registry requirement is regulatory and not punitive in nature," today's opinion states.

Attorney for Appellant (Wiggins): Mark Yurachek

Attorney for Appellee (State): Leigh Patterson, District Attorney