What happens if I fail to register as a sex offender?

Failure to register is a crime. If your underlying sex offense was a misdemeanor conviction or juvenile adjudication, then failure to register is usually a misdemeanor for the first offense, and a felony for any further violations. If your underlying sex offense conviction was a felony conviction, failure to register is usually a felony.[519]

There is no end to when you can be charged for failure to register since California courts consider it to be a continuing offense (in other words, there is no statute of limitations to charging someone with this as a crime).[520] If you fail to register after moving to a new state, you could also be convicted of violating federal registration laws.[521]

You can be convicted of a separate offense for each requirement you violate. For example, you can be convicted of two crimes for failing to update your registration annually and failing to inform authorities of a change of address, even if both offenses happened during the same time period.[522] However, there are rules that prevent California courts from imposing sentences for two or more registration crimes that stem from one single act. For example, if you move to a new county and do not notify the police or appropriate authorities in either the county you are leaving OR the county you are entering, you can be convicted of two crimes but can be punished for only one.[523]

The punishment for failure to register can be severe. Many of the crimes that require registration are violent or serious offenses, so a person who fails to register may face a doubled sentence under California’s “two strikes law” or even a life sentence under California’s “three strikes law.”[524] Courts have upheld some third strike sentences for failure to register despite claims that those sentences were cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment.[525] In a few cases, courts have overturned life sentences where the failure to register was a technical violation, such as not registering annually though staying at the same address.[526]

  1. 519

    Cal. Penal Code § 290.018.

  2. 520

    People v. Fioretti (1997) 54 Cal.App.4th 1209, 1217. Even if your sex offense conviction is later reversed or vacated by a court, the State can prosecute and convict you for a registration violation that occurred before the reversal of the sex offense conviction. In re Watford (2010) 186 Cal.App.4th 684, 687.

  3. 521

    42 U.S.C. § 16901 et seq.; People v. Davis (2011) 202 Cal. App. 4th 429 (federal prosecution for failing to register under SORNA did not bar state court action).

  4. 522

    Cal. Penal Code § 290.018(i).

  5. 523

    People v. Britt (2004) 32 Cal.4th 944, 953-954; People v. Meeks (2004) 123 Cal.App.4th 695, 703; People v. Villegas (2012) 205 Cal. App. 4th 642 (failure to report move, and failure to report new address upon learning of it, were separate violations which allowed for multiple convictions, but multiple punishments were prohibited).

  6. 524

    See Cal. Penal Code §§ 667(b)-(i), 667.5(c), 1192.7(c). Although Proposition 36, which passed on November 7, 2012, reduces the scope of California’s “Three Strikes” law, a person who has two prior “strikes” and is convicted of failing to register can still get a life sentence in some circumstances.

  7. 525

    See, e.g., In re Coley (2012) 55 Cal.4th 524 (not cruel and unusual punishment to sentence defendant to 25 years to life for failing to update registration where refusal to register was intentional and prior criminal history heinous); Crosby v. Schwartz (9th Cir. 2012) 678 F.3d 784 (26 years to life was not cruel and unusual punishment for a registration violation where defendant had lied about his identity in an attempt to deceive); see also People v. Nichols (2009) 176 Cal.App.4th 428, 435-436; People v. Haller (2009) 174 Cal.App.4th 1080; People v. Poslof (2005) 126 Cal.App.4th 92, 108-109; People v. Meeks (2004) 123 Cal.App.4th 695, 703.

  8. 526

    People v. Carmony (2005) 127 Cal. App. 4th 1066 ("Because a 25–year recidivist sentence imposed solely for failure to provide duplicate registration information is grossly disproportionate to the offense, shocks the conscience of the court and offends notions of human dignity, it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under both the state and federal Constitutions. We shall remand the matter to the trial court for resentencing.”). See also Gonzalez v. Duncan (9th Cir. 2008) 551 F.3d 875, 877 (citing analogous facts to Carmony and remanding with instructions to resentence.)