Indecent exposure under California Penal Code Section 314 really has to do with somebody exposing themselves in a public setting, and obviously the exposure is going to have to be some sort of a private part. Were I'm seeing these cases come up is people having sex in a car in public view.
The police come along or some other citizen sees them, individuals who are involved with sex-related offenses where they're showing their private parts to the public — those people can get hit with indecent exposure charges.
I've also seen people just walking around exposing themselves in supermarkets and various other locations in public and the police being alerted because the authorities in the supermarket get a hold of them and they come along and it's a matter of trying to prove whether or not the person actually exposed themselves.
I guess there is a possible defense to these indecent exposure cases — that you really didn't intend to expose yourself. Depending on the circumstances that could be a potential defense. What the prosecutors and police will do in an indecent exposure case where the defendant is claiming they didn't intend to exposure myself, it just happened.
It was accidentally. Obviously, they're going to look at the surrounding circumstances of what happened, listen to what witnesses in the case say, look at the person's prior criminal record to see if they've ever had this type of behavior before, see what type of a background they have. It really just kind of depends on the circumstances whether an indecent exposure case is a good case or not.
Sex Offender Registration
One danger with these indecent exposure cases as it relates to penalties is, they try to make you register as a sex offender. That would be one of the worse results you could have because you would have to register as a sex offender with your local police department every year within five days of your birthday.
You could potentially get on Megan's law website where people could see, your neighbors, that you're a sex registrant. So, this is obviously one of the biggest things we want to avoid.
Also, depending on the level of the indecent exposure, sometimes prosecutors want jail time I order to punish the person and to operate as a deterrent so they will never do this again. Obviously, if you're involved where a child sees you expose yourself in public, that's another big concern that the prosecutors have and they will obviously come down hard if there is a child involved in any way.
So, there's all sorts of different ways that somebody can expose themselves to the public and cause themselves to be arrested and be in criminal court. What I do is I have you come in. We sit down and you give me all the details about what happened.
Obviously, I want a truthful account so I can really assess the seriousness and the level of punishment you might be facing and then we're going to set about defending you and getting a strategy together that makes sense in your indecent exposure case. A lot of times that can include character letters, letters from your work, other locations that know you that can speak to your good character and we can show that whatever activity has occurred is an aberration that will never occur again.
Really, this is the biggest concern for judges and prosecutors in indecent exposure cases is protecting the pubic and making sure that the public at large is not subjected to individuals who expose themselves and commit other crimes related to that exposure.
So, pick up the phone and call our criminal defense attorneys. Make the call and we'll put the wheels in motion to get your matter resolved as soon as possible and get you out of the criminal justice system as swift as possible as well.
