People v. Taghilou CA2/7

INTRODUCTION

More than 25 years ago, Faramarz Taghilou (Taghilou) entered a no contest plea to one count of oral copulation with a child under 14 in violation of Penal Code section 288a, subdivision (c) 1 and agreed to submit to a diagnostic study (§ 1203.03) in exchange for a “three-year lid,” meaning he would be sentenced to no more than three years in prison. At the time, the prosecutor acknowledged she had “witness problems”— “problems of proof.” Taghilou was not advised that, as a consequence of his plea to this offense, he would be required to register as a sex offender pursuant to section 290 and that this registration requirement was for the duration of his life. At Taghilou’s sentencing hearing a few months later, based on the diagnostic study as well as the probation officer’s report, the trial court credited Taghilou for the time spent with the Department of Corrections for purposes of the diagnostic study and sentenced Taghilou to formal probation for three years, expressly concluding probation was the “appropriate” sentence for Taghilou, not prison. In reciting a list of conditions of Taghilou’s probation, the trial court told him he had to “register within the next…