In re WARREN GRANARD >WATFORD >















Filed 7/9/10











CERTIFIED
FOR PUBLICATION





IN THE COURT OF
APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

THIRD APPELLATE
DISTRICT

(Placer)

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>

In re WARREN GRANARD WATFORD on Habeas Corpus.

C062550 (Super. Ct. No. 62077364)

ORIGINAL
PROCEEDINGS. Writ of Habeas Corpus. Petition denied and order to show case
discharged. Superior
Court of Placer
County, Mark S. Curry, Judge.



Linda
M. Leavitt, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Petitioner.



Edmund
G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney
General, Charles A. French and Michael A. Canzoneri, Deputy Attorneys General,
for Respondent.





Petitioner
Warren Granard Watford petitions for a writ of habeas corpus directing the Placer
County Superior Court to vacate its judgment of conviction for failing to
register as a sex offender because the predicate sex offense has been vacated
and will not be retried. Petitioner
asserts the predicate offense is now void ab
initio, and thus he was never required to register and cannot be held for
failing to register.

We disagree
and deny the petition.

FACTS

In 1986,
petitioner was convicted in Suffolk County, Massachusetts,
of a sex offense involving a minor.

Nearly 22
years later, on February 6, 2008, petitioner was arrested in Lincoln,
California, and charged with failing to register as a sex offender as required
under Penal Code sections 290 and 290.005.[1] The evidence at trial indicated petitioner
had arrived in California from Massachusetts
in December 2007, and he had not registered with local authorities since his
arrival.

In April
2008, a Placer County
jury convicted petitioner of failing to
register as a sex offender. The
trial court also found true an allegation that petitioner was convicted of
armed robbery in Massachusetts in
1992, a serious felony for purposes of the â€