In re Laliveres, COA23-742, ___ N.C. App. ___ (Feb. 20, 2024)

In this Wake County case, the petitioner appealed from the trial court’s order requiring him to register as a sex offender in North Carolina based on his out-of-state conviction from New York. The Court of Appeals concluded that the petitioner is required to register as a sex offender in North Carolina and affirmed the trial court’s order.

The petitioner was convicted of attempted first-degree rape in New York in 1993. In 2022, after the petitioner moved to North Carolina, the Wake County Sheriff’s Office notified him that he was required to register as a sex offender based on the New York conviction. The petitioner filed for a judicial determination under G.S. 14-208.12B. The trial court concluded that the New York conviction was substantially similar to second-degree forcible rape under G.S. 14-27.22, and therefore required registration.

On appeal, the petitioner argued that his New York conviction was not substantially similar to a North Carolina crime requiring registration, because it was for an attempt, and thus not included within the definition of a reportable offense in North Carolina. The Court of Appeals concluded that substantial similarity was irrelevant. The New York conviction required registration in North Carolina based on the second pathway to reportability set out in G.S. 14-208.6(4)(b): that the offense requires registration under the law of the state of conviction. That pathway, initially enacted in 2006 and amended in 2010 to apply to all individuals with qualifying out-of-state convictions regardless of the date they move to North Carolina, applied to the petitioner. Therefore, because his attempted rape conviction required registration in New York, it requires registration here “independent of any substantial similarity analysis.” Slip op. at 8.