I am a 290 registrant, and I am on state parole. What other special conditions of parole could apply to me?

Parole officials may impose other special conditions on parolees who were convicted of sex offenses. Some of these are required by state law and others can be imposed at the discretion of parole officials.

Mandatory special conditions of parole—meaning they are required by state law—include the following:

    Attendance at group therapy for at least one year;
    Waiver (giving up) of the privilege against self-incrimination;
    Waiver the right not to participate in polygraph examination;
    Waiver of psychotherapist-patient privilege during conversations with state-funded therapists. This means that any information you share in a therapy session could be used against you in the future if you ever face new criminal charges or Sexually Violent Predatory (SVP) proceedings.[576]

Discretionary special conditions of parole—meaning the parole officer gets to decide based on individual factors whether or not to impose these—include the following possibilities:

    Limitations or prohibitions on accessing computers, the Internet, or certain publications.[577]
    Prohibitions on living with minors, including your own children, step-children, nieces, nephews, or siblings.[578]

NOTE: In the Packingham v. North Carolina case, decided in 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court invavlidated a North Carolina law prohibiting sex offender registrants from accessing social media websites.[579] Though California does not have a similar law, the Packingham case could be useful to refer to when challenging parole conditions related to social media or Internet usage.

  1. 576

    People v. Gonzales (2013) 56 Cal.4th 353 (holding that, in an SVP proceeding that took place prior to enactment of waiver requirement, admission of parolee’s statements to therapist did not violate his constitutional right to privacy; although admission of the statements violated California privilege statutes, the error was deemed harmless.) ↑

  2. 577

    Courts have found some of these conditions to be invalid. See e.g., In re Stevens 119 Cal.App.4th 1228 (2004) (unreasonable to prohibit use of computers Internet when neither used in committing crime); United States v. Gnirke 775 F.3d 1155 (2015) (special condition of supervision barring possession of any materials that depicted “sexually explicit conduct” involving either children or adults, and forbidding registrant from patronizing any place where such materials or entertainment were available was overbroad). ↑

  3. 578

    Whether such conditions are lawful depends on case-by-case factors, such as the scope of the condition, your type and number of sex offenses, the findings of any risk assessment evaluation, the sex and age of the minor child, and the closeness of the family relationship. See e.g., United States v. Wolf Child (9th Cir 2012) 699 F.3d 1082 (unreasonable and overbroad to prohibit registrant from living with or being in company of any minor under 18 or socializing with anyone with minor children, resulting in registrant being unable to live with or see his own (non-victim) daughters or socialize with his fiancée). ↑

  4. 579

    Packingham v. N.C., 137 S.Ct. 1730 (2017). ↑