A Kansas Court of Appeals panel has upheld a ruling in the case of a Lyon County inmate who allegedly battered a jailer nearly four years ago.
In May 2015, Giovanni Juarez-Hernandez allegedly hit a jailer hard enough to break the officer’s eye socket. The jailer needed surgery afterward. Juarez was subsequently charged with aggravated battery and pleaded no contest to a lower-level aggravated battery count.
Juarez appealed the court’s order forcing him to register as a violent offender, saying he should have been given prior notice of that possibility and that district court was wrong to order him to register. Juarez also said the court’s order prompting him to pay over $23,000 in restitution was unworkable and should be set aside.
The Court of Appeals sided with district court. The appellate court panel said the state’s registration act gave the lower court the authority to order offender registration in Juarez’s case. It also said the court’s failure to notify Juarez was not a reason to cancel the registration order and the restitution order was not an abuse of discretion in this case.
