Ninth Circuit to Rehear Sex Offender’s Appeal

SEATTLE (CN) — The Ninth Circuit agreed Friday to reconsider a sex offender's claims that he was unfairly forced to admit his guilt as a condition of his probation.

Friday's order granting Daniel Chavez a panel rehearing comes less than a month after the court revived his case in Oregon.

Chavez brought the suit after he was released from prison in 2010.

Though a jury in Oregon had found Chavez guilty on two counts of first-degree sexual abuse and private indecency, Chavez maintained his innocence and balked at a term of his probation requiring him to admit his guilt so that he could enroll in a mandatory treatment program for sex offenders.

Chavez worried that such an admission would expose him to perjury charges and affect his chances at a retrial — a fear that proved prescient as Chavez was granted a retrial in 2012 after "the Oregon Attorney General conceded error," according to the ruling.

Before that order came to pass, though, Chavez's therapist rejected him from the program, his probation was revoked and Chavez spent another 45 days in jail for as a sanction.

Chavez filed suit but his case languished for nearly two years before a federal judge dismissed the case for failure to state a claim.

Last month, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed that dismissal.

The court amended a line of that March 29 ruling today and also noted the panel has voted to grant the petition for a panel rehearing.

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