Nonresident Registrants

In a previous post I wrote about the complexities of putting people on North Carolina’s sex offender registry for crimes committed in another state—including how a federal court found the lack of legal process for doing so unconstitutional, and how over half of the records I checked appeared to be incorrect. Today's post considers the related issue of people on North Carolina’s registry who do not actually live in the state. Over 5,500 of the 25,000 people on North Carolina’s sex offender registry don’t reside here. Should they be on North Carolina’s registry at all? It’s not clear. Under G.S. 14-208.7(a), a “person who is a State resident and who has a reportable conviction shall be required to maintain registration . . . .” No law explicitly requires registration here for former residents. As for nonresidents, the only ones expressly required to register here are nonresident students and nonresident workers. Persons in those categories—defined in G.S. 14-208.6(1k) and (1l), respectively—must register with the sheriff of the county where they work or attend school. G.S. 14-208.7(a1). There are currently 22 nonresidents students and workers on the registry. No law requires any other nonresident to maintain registration. In fact, G.S. 14-208.9(b) appears to be designed as a handoff between the “sending” North Carolina sheriff and the “receiving” sheriff of another state when a registrant intends to establish residence in another jurisdiction. The law requires notice to the Department of Public Safety (the custodian of the statewide registry)—arguably to facilitate the person’s removal from [...]