Michigan Criminal Defense Law Blog

The Sex Offenders Registration Act is known as SORA.  SORA was enacted pursuant to the legislature’s exercise of police power of the state.  Its intent is to monitor persons that are believed to pose a potential danger to the people of the state. Sora is a database that contains the names and addresses of individuals convicted of certain sex crimes. In Michigan, the Michigan State Police (MSP) is the agency established by the Act to be the keeper of the registry and repository.  The Michigan State Police local posts, and other local county and city/township law enforcement agencies, serve as the locations for the offender to register.  The frequency of reporting, the number of years of reporting, and whether the information is public or private, is dependent upon the type of conviction for the offender and is categorized by Tiers.

What are Tiers?

In Michigan, sex crime offenses are categorized into three Tiers.  Tier 1 is the least serious, and Tier 3 is the most serious.  The more serious the offense, the more frequent and longer the individual is required to report/register.

The short answer is – immediately.  When it comes to sex crimes in Michigan, you should never take a “wait and see” approach. Sex crimes are taken very seriously in Michigan and carry with them severe penalties including long periods of incarceration.

Plus, sex crimes investigations are often extensive and could take weeks or months before any official charges are authorized. Authorized means an official charge against you, which usually begins when the investigating officer submitting their findings or report to the county prosecutor to review and approve, or authorize.  If the prosecutor approves, the officer will then appear in court before a Judge or Magistrate and “swears to” a warrant for your arrest.  Once the Judge or Magistrate sign it, there will now be a Felony Arrest Warrant for you.

If you have done something that might make you susceptible to a Criminal Sexual Conduct (CSC) charge, or other sex crime or assault, if you are suspicious that someone may be making a complaint against you, and certainly if you have been contacted by police or law enforcement, you must consult and retain an experienced assault and sex crime attorney immediately.

Michigan Criminal Sexual Conduct, commonly referred to as CSC, is the unlawful sexual assault or touching or penetration of another. In Michigan, there are four separate offenses each defined by the acts of behaviors of the alleged offender.

Each level of offense is called a “degree.” In order to support an allegation, the state must demonstrate a range of factors or legal ideas that are present in each degree of the charge. Such variables may include the age of the victim, the relationship of the perpetrator to the victim, and whether force or coercion was used in the commission of the alleged crime.

Punishment for Michigan Criminal Sexual Conduct

When a person is arrested for criminal sexual conduct, they are taken to jail to be fingerprinted, booked, and in most jurisdictions, held until arraignment. The person may, depending on whether the jail officers feel like it, be given a phone call. Next, that person will be taken in front of a judge to be arraigned. At the arraignment, that person will have an opportunity to plead guilty or not guilty and the judge will order bond conditions.

Bond conditions typically include an amount of money the person must pay to be released, no contact with the accuser, and no travel outside the state. The amount of cash bond someone must pay is a significant issue. The bond amount for the most serious sex crimes can be in the tens and thousands of dollars. It can be the difference between never spending more than a few hours in jail versus spending months in jail waiting for a trial because their client or client’s family could not pay the bond.

If a good sex crimes lawyer is at the arraignment the lawyer will try to convince the judge that a minimal bond amount is appropriate and therefore give their client a better chance of being released.

Hiring an attorney early in the process is important for several reasons.

1. 1. First, if you haven’t been formally charged with a sex crime or, as Michigan calls it, criminal sexual conduct, a good attorney can intervene and try to prevent charges from ever being filed. We call this part of the situation in the pre-charge phase. In this phase, someone has been informed by somebody, possibly the alleged victim, that the alleged victim or the family intends on filing a police report. In some cases, we’ve helped people in the pre-charge phase avoid the stress and embarrassment of long and public proceedings in court because we could show detectives and prosecutors that there is not enough evidence to even charge our client with criminal sexual conduct.
   2.  Hiring an attorney early in a Criminal Sexual Conduct case is important because in most sex crimes cases, police will try to interview the accused person. In this interview, the investigator will ask questions that can be designed to elicit incriminating responses. Even though the person may be innocent of a sex crime, that person may give an answer that can incriminate him or her. One should NEVER speak to the police about a criminal situation, ESPECIALLY a criminal sexual conduct crime, without an attorney because an attorney can spot these issues in the interview and advise innocent clients not to respond.