“Time Served” on Another State’s Sex Offender Registry

North Carolina requires certain people to register as sex offenders in North Carolina for crimes committed in other states. But what if a person has completed his or her term of registration in another state before moving here? Can North Carolina require the person to register again? The definition of “reportable conviction”—which is to say, convictions that require sex offender registration—includes two types of convictions from other states. First, there are out-of-state crimes that are substantially similar to North Carolina crimes that require registration. Second, there are crimes that require registration under the sex offender registration statutes of another state. G.S. 14-208.6(4)b. The second category was added in 2006, to address the possibility that a person could evade their registration requirement by moving to North Carolina if he or she were on another state’s registry for a crime that was not substantially similar to any crime requiring registration here. We know that time spent on another state’s registry does not generally count toward the time an offender must spend on the registry here before he or she is eligible to petition for removal. In In re Borden, 216 N.C. App. 579 (2011) (discussed here), the court of appeals read the words “initial county registration” in G.S. 14-208.12A to refer to a person’s initial registration in a county in North Carolina, not to a county in any jurisdiction (in Mr. Borden’s case, Kentucky). Thus, the time he spent on Kentucky’s registry did not count toward the 10-year period that needed to transpire [...]