Man Acquitted by Yolo County Jury of Failure to Register As Sex Offender

A Yolo County jury has acquitted Randall Hill of failing to register as a sex offender.  According to Deputy District Attorney Chris Bulkeley, Randall Hill was residing in Woodland at his girlfriend’s residence.

He had been convicted of a felony for a sexual offense that requires him to register as a sex offender under Penal Code section 290.  However, he failed to register with the Woodland Police Department.

Between January 17 and March 1, 2010, Mr. Hill was required to register in Woodland with this concurrent address, according to the DA’s office.

Back in 1997, Mr. Hill was convicted of child molestation in Ventura County.  Four years later, he was convicted of failure to register as a sex offender in Placer County, and again in 2002 in Contra Costa County.

The defense contests that during that six-week period, Mr. Hill in fact maintained his home residence in Roseville, where he was dutifully and continuously registered with local authorities.  His attorney argued that he continued to reside at and register at his home in Roseville.

The Woodland address was the home of his girlfriend.  Both Mr. Hill and his girlfriend gave statements to the police, stating that their romantic relationship was becoming more serious during the six-week period in question and  that, accordingly, Mr. Hill had begun spending more time at his girlfriend’s home.

The question before the jury was whether Mr. Hill’s presence at his girlfriend’s home at this point in time triggered his duty to register her residence as his home.  Under PC 290, if a registrant changes his or her residence to a new location, the-registrant must notify the new location’s authorities within five working days of establishing the new residence.

According to his attorney, the Penal Code itself is a bit unclear as to when a person has established a regular resident in order to trigger the requirement. The PC reads, “Regardless of the number of days or nights spent there.”  His attorney argued, “If ‘the number of days or nights spent there’ is irrelevant, how does a registrant know when he or she ‘has more than one residence address at which he or she regularly resides’ (id.)? The statute doesn’t say.”

Mr. Hill’s attorney argued that Mr. Hill was not in violation of the registration requirement, and even if he were, he was unaware of this fact.

Bolstering Mr. Hill’s defense case is the fact that Mr. Hill did not pay any of the bills at his girlfriend’s residence.  He continued to pay utility and all bills at his Roseville residence.  In fact, his girlfriend was behind on payments and facing eviction.

Mr. Hill pled guilty to the single charge and was granted probation.  The probation officer, in recommending probation, noted that “the offense appears to have been a situational one in which a troubled, immature 19-year-old male took advantage of a 12-year-old female.”

He would later be convicted of violations of Penal Code 290 and failure to register and be sentenced to prison.

Mr. Hill, however, has since cleaned up his act, giving up drugs and drinking.  Currently, Mr. Hill is the foreman of an iron worker crew for Schwager Davis, building bridges in Southern California.

He had a clean record for nearly a decade when this incident occurred.

Not only did the prosecution originally seek the 290 charge, but they sought to impose his prior strike.

Mr. Bulkeley, in opposing a Romero motion to remove the prior strike, argued, “Defendant has not only suffered a strike conviction for child molestation, but he has already suffered felony registration convictions pursuant to Penal Code Section 290 et. seq. in two other counties. For those violations, he has already been committed to prison.”

He added, “In the current case, he failed to notify law enforcement that he was living in a home with a seven-year-old girl. Striking a strike prior (which has previously been imposed for a similar offense) would be inconsistent with the clear legislative intent and the spirit of the three strikes law.”

In arguing to strike his previous offense, Mr. Hill’s attorney argued, “Further, when law enforcement called Mr. Hill to assert he was in violation of section 290, Mr. Hill was remarkably cooperative. As promised, Mr. Hill swiftly turned himself in after getting his personal affairs in order over the weekend.”

His attorney added, “And Mr. Hill indicated to law enforcement that, until they asserted otherwise, he believed he had no duty to register his girlfriend’s address as his own address under these circumstances.”

His girlfriend provided a letter in support of Mr. Hill’s Romero motion, stating that “[d]uring the time frame [my daughter] was around Mr. Hill there were no inappropriate actions, works, or behavior. Mr. Hill was no threat to my daughter in any way at any time.”

Given the length of time that had passed since his offense, the circumstances of his current accusations, the judge dismissed the previous charge.

The Vanguard spoke to a member of the jury in this matter who asked that his/her identity be withheld.  The juror indicated that it was very clear from the evidence that Mr. Hill did not reside in his girlfriend’s home.

Chiefly, the juror cited the fact that the separate residence was maintained, that the bills were paid separately, and his girlfriend was financially suffering and Mr. Hill did not come forth with financial support to shore up her home, as evidence that this was not his residence.

Moreover, the juror indicated that the jury as a whole questioned the purpose of charging this case, citing Mr. Hill’s apparent turn around in life, the fact that he has for nearly a decade been a crime-free, working individual, dutifully registering with authorities.

Finally, the base crime was the indiscretion of a troubled youth, a phase that Mr. Hill appears to have left behind.

The juror went so far as to question the use of resources expended in this case when the juror deemed there likely to be more serious matters.

It is worth noting that other cases were, in fact, postponed and lives disrupted so that this case could proceed to trial.

The jury apparently took less than three hours to conclude the lack of guilt on the part of the defendant.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

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