Revised Sex Offender Flow Chart (July 2017 Edition)

With another legislative session in the books, it’s time for an update to the sex offender registration and monitoring flow chart. The revised chart is here. In addition to routine citation and formatting maintenance, it makes the following changes. First-degree statutory rape is reportable again. When the General Assembly recodified many of North Carolina’s sex laws in 2015, the recodified version of first-degree statutory rape (G.S. 14-27.24) was left off the list of reportable sex crimes set out in G.S. 14-208.6(5). That meant anyone convicted of first-degree statutory rape for an offense committed on or after December 1, 2015 did not have to register as a sex offender. This year’s technical corrections act (S.L. 2017-102) fixed the omission, adding G.S. 14-27.24 to the list of reportable crimes. And so that crime is added to the chart. Note the effective date. The change was made retroactively effective to December 1, 2015. That retroactivity is probably fine when it comes to sex offender registration itself. Under our current understanding of things, registration is not punishment, and applying a registration requirement retroactively therefore does not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. State v. White, 162 N.C. App. 183 (2004). My guess is that anyone convicted of first-degree statutory rape for an offense committed since December 1, 2015 is still in prison for it and wouldn’t have been registered yet in any event. Under the revised law they will have to register when they are released, so no harm done by the two-year statutory hiatus [...]