Title: State v. Miller

State: north-carolina

Issuer: North Carolina Supreme Court

Document:

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA 
No. 113PA16   
Filed 9 June 2017 
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA  
 
 
v. 
AUSTIN LYNN MILLER 
 
On discretionary review pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-31 of a unanimous decision 
of the Court of Appeals, ___ N.C. App. ___, 783 S.E.2d 512 (2016), vacating a judgment 
entered on 5 February 2015 by Judge Eric C. Morgan in Superior Court, Watauga 
County.  Heard in the Supreme Court on 14 February 2017. 
 
Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Joseph L. Hyde, Assistant Attorney 
General, for the State-appellant. 
 
Jeffrey William Gillette for defendant-appellee. 
 
ERVIN, Justice.  
 
On 12 June 2013, the General Assembly enacted legislation that, effective 1 
December 2013, made it “unlawful for any person” to “[p]ossess a pseudoephedrine 
product if the person has a prior conviction for the possession or manufacture of 
methamphetamine,” with any person convicted of this offense to “be punished as a 
Class H felon.”  Act of June 12, 2013, ch. 124, secs. 1, 3, 2013 N.C. Sess. Laws 291, 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
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291-93 (codified at N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c)).1  Prior to the enactment of N.C.G.S. § 
90-95(d1)(1)(c), any person aged eighteen or older was entitled to purchase “at retail” 
up to “3.6 grams of any pseudoephedrine products[2] per calendar day” and up to “9 
grams of pseudoephedrine products within any 30-day period,” N.C.G.S. § 90-113.53 
(2015),3 as long as the purchaser furnished appropriate photo identification and a 
current valid residential address and signed a form attesting to the validity of his or 
her personal information and other information that could be accessed by law 
enforcement officers, see id. §§ 90-113.52 (2015), -113.53.  The ultimate issue 
presented for our consideration in this case is whether N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c), as 
applied to defendant, worked a deprivation of defendant’s right to due process of law 
under the federal constitution.  After careful consideration of the record evidence in 
light of the applicable legal principles, we conclude that defendant’s as-applied 
challenge to the constitutionality of N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) lacks merit and reverse 
the decision of the Court of Appeals, State v. Miller, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___, 783 S.E.2d 
512, 523-24 (2016), to the contrary. 
                                            
1 The Governor approved the new statutory provision on 19 June 2013. 
 
2 A “pseudoephedrine product” is “a product containing any detectable quantity of 
pseudoephedrine or ephedrine base, their salts or isomers, or salts of their isomers.”  N.C.G.S. 
§ 90-113.51(a) (2015). 
 
3 The statutory purchase limits do not apply “if the product is dispensed under a valid 
prescription.” Id. § 90-113.53(a), (b). 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
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On 3 October 2012, Judge R. Stuart Albright entered a judgment in Ashe 
County File Nos. 12 CrS 248, 11 CrS 50918, 11 CrS 50919, and 11 CrS 50920 
sentencing defendant to a term of sixteen to twenty months of imprisonment, with 
this sentence being suspended and with defendant being placed on supervised 
probation for a period of thirty-six months, based upon defendant’s convictions for 
possession of a methamphetamine precursor with the intent to distribute (File No. 12 
CrS 248), maintaining a vehicle or dwelling for the purpose of selling or delivering a 
controlled substance (File No. 11 CrS 50918), possession of methamphetamine (File 
No. 11 CrS 50919), and possession of drug paraphernalia (File No. 11 CrS 50920).  On 
5 January 2014, defendant purchased “Allergy Congestion Relief D–ER tabs,” which 
contained 3.6 grams of pseudoephedrine, from a Walmart pharmacy in Boone.  On 7 
January 2014, Detective John Hollar of the Watauga County Sheriff’s Office 
examined the National Precursor Log Exchange, which is an electronic database 
administered by the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators that tracks 
pseudoephedrine purchases, N.C.G.S. § 90-113.52A (2015), and determined that 
defendant had made this pseudoephedrine purchase.  In view of the fact that 
Detective Hollar knew that defendant had previously been convicted of possessing 
methamphetamine, he obtained the issuance of a warrant for defendant’s arrest.  On 
4 August 2014, the Watauga County grand jury returned a bill of indictment charging 
defendant with “possess[ing] an immediate precursor chemical, pseudoephedrine, 
having a prior conviction for the possession of methamphetamine, to wit:  The 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
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defendant was convicted of Possession of Methamphetamine in Ashe County, File 
Number 11 CRS 50919, on 1 October 2012.”4 
On 4 February 2015, defendant filed a motion in which he requested the trial 
court to declare N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) unconstitutional on the grounds that 
punishing him for violating this newly enacted statutory provision contravened his 
federal due process rights as enunciated in Lambert v. California, 355 U.S. 225, 2 L. 
Ed. 2d 228 (1957).  In support of this contention, defendant argued that N.C.G.S. § 
90-95(d1)(1)(c) had criminalized the otherwise innocent act of possessing a 
pseudoephedrine product for a subset of felons to which defendant belonged despite 
the fact that the purchase of such substances by individuals like defendant had been 
entirely lawful little more than a month earlier and that the State’s failure to provide 
adequate notice of this change in law constituted a federal due process violation like 
that identified in Lambert.  In addition, defendant asserted that federal due process 
principles required that a mens rea or scienter element be imported into N.C.G.S. § 
90-95(d1)(1)(c) in light of Lambert; Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 96 L. 
Ed. 288 (1952); and Liparota v. United States, 471 U.S. 419, 85 L. Ed. 2d 434 (1985).  
For that reason, in the event that this case proceeded to trial, defendant argued that 
the trial court would be required to instruct the jury that, in order to return a verdict 
                                            
4 Although the dates associated with defendant’s conviction for methamphetamine 
possession set out in the indictment and delineated in the evidence differ, defendant did not 
argue in the Court of Appeals that this divergence between allegation and proof constituted 
a fatal variance entitling him to dismissal of the charge that had been lodged against him. 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
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of guilty, the jury would have to find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant had 
the specific intent to violate the law consisting of proof that defendant “had 
knowledge that it was illegal to purchase [a pseudoephedrine product] because he 
had a meth[amphetamine] conviction.” 
In response, the State argued that N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) resembles 
N.C.G.S. § 14-415.1, which provides, in pertinent part, that “[i]t shall be unlawful for 
any person who has been convicted of a felony to purchase, own, possess, or have in 
his custody, care, or control any firearm or any weapon of mass death and 
destruction” and which has repeatedly been upheld by North Carolina courts.  
N.C.G.S. § 14-415.1(a) (2015).  More specifically, the State asserted that N.C.G.S. § 
90-95(d1)(1)(c), like N.C.G.S. § 14-415.1, merely requires an “intent to act”; that the 
dangers posed by methamphetamine are similar to those posed by firearms in the 
possession of felons; and that the similarities between these two statutes demonstrate 
the constitutionality of N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c).  Additionally, the State asserted 
that defendant’s specific intent argument amounted to a claim that “ignorance of the 
law should be an excuse.”  At the conclusion of the pretrial hearing, the trial court 
denied defendant’s motion to declare N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) unconstitutional 
“without prejudice to later arguments at the charging conference as to jury 
instructions.” 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
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At the jury instruction conference held near the conclusion of defendant’s trial, 
defendant reiterated his request that the trial court instruct the jury concerning the 
necessity for a showing that he had acted with specific intent to violate the law using 
the “instruction from the Liparota case which tracked an earlier federal pattern jury 
instruction.”  Ultimately, the State and defendant agreed that the trial court would 
instruct the jury utilizing N.C.P.I. Crim. 120.10, which defines intent, 1 N.C.P.I.–
Crim. 120.10 (June 2012), and N.C.P.I. Crim. 261.55, which defines the showing that 
the State was required to make in order to convict defendant of the substantive 
offense with which he had been charged, 3 N.C.P.I.–Crim. 261.55 (June 2014).  In 
light of that agreement, the trial court instructed the jury that: 
 
Intent is a mental attitude seldom provable by direct 
evidence.  It must ordinarily be proved by circumstances 
from which it may be inferred.  You arrive at the intent of 
a person by such just and reasonable deductions from the 
circumstances proven as a reasonably prudent person 
would ordinarily draw therefrom. 
 
 
The defendant has been charged with the possession 
of a pseudoephedrine product with a prior conviction of the 
possession of methamphetamine.  For you to find the 
defendant guilty of this offense, the State must prove two 
things beyond a reasonable doubt:  First, that the 
defendant possessed a pseudoephedrine product.  And, 
second, that the defendant has a prior conviction for the 
possession of methamphetamine. 
 
If you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable 
doubt that the defendant possessed a pseudoephedrine 
product and has a prior conviction for the possession of 
methamphetamine, then it would be your duty to return a 
verdict of guilty.  If you do not so find, or have a reasonable 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
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doubt as to one or more of these things, then it would be 
your duty to return a verdict of not guilty. 
At the conclusion of its deliberations, the jury returned a verdict convicting defendant 
as charged.  Based upon the jury’s verdict, the trial court entered a judgment 
sentencing defendant to a term of six to seventeen months of imprisonment, with this 
sentence having been suspended and with defendant having been placed on 
supervised probation for a period of twenty-four months.  Defendant successfully 
sought review of the trial court’s judgment by filing a petition seeking the issuance of 
a writ of certiorari with the Court of Appeals.  Miller, ___ N.C. App. at ___, 783 S.E.2d 
at 516. 
In seeking relief from the trial court’s judgment before the Court of Appeals, 
defendant argued that N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c), as applied to him, violated his due 
process rights.  In support of this contention, defendant argued that, in instances, 
like this one, in which a state has rendered otherwise innocent and lawful behavior 
subject to significant criminal penalties, due process considerations require either 
that scienter or mens rea be shown in order to prove guilt or, in the alternative, that 
the State establish that defendant had fair warning that a previously lawful act was 
now subject to the criminal sanction.  Defendant claimed that he reasonably believed 
that he had the right to lawfully purchase pseudoephedrine products on 5 January 
2014, that he reasonably lacked any knowledge that the law had changed effective 1 
December 2013, that he did not intend to violate the law by purchasing an allergy 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
-8- 
medication, and that punishing him as a felon for purchasing a product containing 
pseudoephedrine under such circumstances was fundamentally unfair.  For that 
reason, defendant asserted that guilt of the offense made punishable by N.C.G.S. § 
90-95(d1)(1)(c) should require proof that defendant knew that his actions were 
unlawful or, in the absence of such a scienter or mens rea requirement, that the 
State’s failure to notify him and other similarly situated individuals that they were 
prohibited from purchasing products containing pseudoephedrine as a precondition 
for subjecting them to the criminal sanction for acting in that manner rendered the 
relevant statutory provision unconstitutional. 
In response, the State argued that, since N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) does not 
fall within the narrow category of crimes for which knowledge that the prohibited 
conduct is unlawful is required, defendant’s ignorance of the prohibited nature of his 
conduct does not preclude a finding of criminal liability.  In the State’s view, N.C.G.S. 
§ 90-95(d1)(1)(c) is a straightforward and easily understood statutory provision 
rather than a “highly technical” tax or currency statute of the sort that requires proof 
that the defendant knew that his or her conduct was unlawful, citing Bryan v. United 
States, 524 U.S. 184, 194-95, 141 L. Ed. 2d 197, 207 (1998).  Moreover, the State 
argued that the exception to the general rule that proof that the defendant knew of 
the unlawfulness of his or her conduct is not required in order to establish the 
defendant’s guilt set out in Lambert only applies in the event that the challenged 
statutory provision criminalizes “wholly passive” conduct and that defendant’s 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
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decision to purchase pseudoephedrine cannot be characterized in that manner.  
Although proof of defendant’s guilt in this case does require a showing that defendant 
knew that he had a prior methamphetamine possession conviction and that the 
substance that he possessed contained pseudoephedrine, the relevant statutory 
provision cannot be reasonably construed to require proof that defendant knew that 
it was unlawful for him to possess pseudoephedrine as a precondition for a finding of 
guilt. 
The Court of Appeals began its discussion of defendant’s challenges to the trial 
court’s judgment by noting that the extent, if any, to which the General Assembly 
intended to include a specific intent or scienter element in N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) 
depends upon the manner in which the relevant statutory language should be 
construed.5  Miller, ___ N.C. App. at ___, 783 S.E.2d at 516.  Given that N.C.G.S. § 
90-95(d1)(1)(c) fails to explicitly provide for a specific intent or mens rea element and 
that the General Assembly has included such language in defining the other offenses 
listed under N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1), id. at ___, 783 S.E.2d at 516-17 (discussing 
N.C.G.S. §§ 90-95(d1)(1)(a)-(b) and 90-95(d1)(2)(a)-(b)), the Court of Appeals 
                                            
5  The exact nature of defendant’s statutory construction challenge to the trial court’s 
judgment is not entirely clear.  Although defendant could have advanced this contention in 
support of an argument that the trial court had erred by failing to dismiss the charge that 
had been lodged against him for insufficiency of the evidence, an argument that the trial 
court had erroneously instructed the jury concerning the applicable law, or an argument that 
N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) could only be upheld against a constitutional challenge in the event 
that the relevant statutory provision was construed so as to include such a scienter or mens 
rea requirement, defendant did not clearly make any one of these three arguments. 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
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concluded that the General Assembly had “ ‘ intentionally and purposely’ ” excluded 
“an intent element” from N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c), id. at ___, 783 S.E.2d at 517 
(quoting State v. Watterson, 198 N.C. App. 500, 506, 679 S.E.2d 897, 900 (2009) 
(quoting N.C. Dep’t of Revenue v. Hudson, 196 N.C. App. 765, 768, 675 S.E.2d 709, 
711 (2009))).  Although “any possession of a controlled substance offense contains an 
implied knowledge element, to wit, that the defendant must know he possesses the 
controlled substance and must also know the identity of the substance,” id. at ___ n.3, 
783 S.E.2d at 517 n.3 (citing State v. Galaviz–Torres, 368 N.C. 44, 52, 772 S.E.2d 434, 
439 (2015) (discussing State v. Coleman, 227 N.C. App. 354, 742 S.E.2d 346, disc. rev. 
denied, 367 N.C. 271, 752 S.E.2d 466 (2013))), the Court of Appeals concluded that 
the General Assembly intended for N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) “to be exactly what its 
plain language indicates:   a strict liability offense without any element of intent,” id. 
at ___, 783 S.E.2d at 517. 
After rejecting defendant’s contention that N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) should be 
construed to require proof that defendant knew that he was not entitled to purchase 
products containing pseudoephedrine, the Court of Appeals addressed defendant’s as-
applied challenge to the constitutionality of that statutory provision.  Id. at ___, 783 
S.E.2d at 517-23.  Despite its recognition “that methamphetamine manufacture and 
use is a significant law enforcement and public health problem which demands 
serious criminal penalties,” id. at ___, 783 S.E.2d at 519-20, the Court of Appeals 
concluded that, “in light of . . . Lambert and Liparota,” N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) “is 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
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unconstitutional as applied to [defendant],” id. at ___, 783 S.E.2d at 520, given that 
“[p]ossession of pseudoephedrine products is an innocuous and entirely legal act for 
the majority of people in our State, including most convicted felons,” id. at ___, 783 
S.E.2d at 520, and that “possessing allergy medications containing pseudoephedrine,” 
unlike the possession of “illegal drugs,” “hand grenades,” or “dangerous acids,” “is an 
act that citizens, including convicted felons, would reasonably assume to be legal,” id. 
at ___, 783 S.E.2d at 520 (citing Liparota, 471 U.S. at 426, 85 L. Ed. 2d at 440).  Prior 
to the enactment of N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c), the statutory provisions regulating the 
purchase of products containing pseudoephedrine required the provision of notice of 
the lawfulness of particular purchases at the point of sale, id. at ___, 783 S.E.2d at 
520; however, violations of N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) can occur without the provision 
of any such point of sale notice even though such purchases would be lawful “for most 
people, including the vast majority of convicted felons,” id. at ___, 783 S.E.2d at 520.  
“Simply put,” the Court of Appeals reasoned, “there were no ‘circumstances which 
might move one to inquire as to’ a significant change in the [Controlled Substances 
Act’s] requirements nor any notice to [defendant] that the new [provision] had 
transformed an innocent act previously legal for him into a felony.”  Id. at ___, 783 
S.E.2d at 520 (quoting Lambert, 355 U.S. at 229, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 232).  In reaching this 
conclusion, the Court of Appeals found the decision in Wolf v. State of Oklahoma, 
2012 OK CR 16, 292 P.3d 512 (Okla. Crim. App. 2012), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 186 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
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L. Ed. 2d 877 (2013), to be highly persuasive, Miller, ___ N.C. App. at ___, 783 S.E.2d 
at 520-21, concluding, in reliance upon Wolf, that 
[t]aken together, Lambert and Liparota suggest 
that, while a legislature may criminalize conduct in itself, 
with no intent requirement, the legislature must make 
some provision to inform a person that the conduct, as 
applied to her, is criminal.  This is particularly important 
where the conduct in question is otherwise legal.  This is 
precisely the circumstance here:  some convicted felons are 
prohibited from purchasing pseudoephedrine, while others, 
along with the general population, are not.  
 
Id. at ___, 783 S.E.2d at 521 (alteration in original) (quoting Wolf, 2012 OK CR at 
¶ 10, 292 P.3d at 516).  As a result, the Court of Appeals held that N.C.G.S. § 90-
95(d1)(1)(c) is unconstitutional “as applied to a defendant in the absence of notice to 
the subset of convicted felons whose otherwise lawful conduct is criminalized thereby 
or proof beyond a reasonable doubt by the State that a particular defendant was 
aware that his possession of a pseudoephedrine product was prohibited by law,” id. 
at ___, 783 S.E.2d at 521, and that defendant’s conviction for violating N.C.G.S. § 
95-90(d1)(1)(c) should, for that reason, be vacated, id. at ___, 783 S.E.2d at 523-24.  
On 9 June 2016, we allowed the State’s petition for discretionary review of the Court 
of Appeals’ decision that N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) is unconstitutional as applied to 
defendant on notice-related grounds. 
In seeking relief from the decision of the court below before this Court, the 
State argues that the Court of Appeals disregarded the well-established legal 
principle that ignorance of the law is no excuse by misapplying the Lambert exception 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
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and misconstruing decisions such as Liparota in order to limit the otherwise 
applicable maxim that members of the public have notice of the applicable law to 
situations in which a reasonable person would know the content of the law.  In the 
State’s view, this case is controlled by Lambert and this Court’s decision in State v. 
Bryant, 359 N.C. 554, 614 S.E.2d 479 (2005), in which we described Lambert as 
creating “a narrow exception to the general rule” to the effect that citizens are 
presumed to know the law applicable in situations when the allegedly unlawful 
conduct is “ ‘wholly passive.’ ”  Id. at 566, 614 S.E.2d at 487 (quoting Lambert, 355 
U.S. at 228, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 231).  In order to take advantage of this exception, the 
defendant must establish that the statutory provision in question criminalizes a 
failure to act, such as the failure to register as a felon at issue in Lambert and the 
failure to register as a sex offender at issue in Bryant.  In the State’s view, defendant 
was not prosecuted for a failure to act.  On the contrary, N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) 
proscribes an affirmative act, which is the intentional possession of a prohibited 
substance.  As defendant conceded before the trial court, his conduct was “not an 
absence to act like there is in Lambert.”  In the event that a defendant fails to 
establish that his behavior is “wholly passive,” whether because the relevant conduct 
does not involve a failure to act, as is the situation in this case, or because the 
defendant’s failure to act occurred under circumstances that would lead a reasonable 
person to inquire as to his or her legal duties, as was the case with the defendant’s 
duty to register as a sex offender in North Carolina at issue in Bryant, the maxim 
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Opinion of the Court 
 
 
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that ignorance of the law provides no excuse and that all citizens are presumed to 
know the law remains applicable.  Instead of correctly applying the narrow Lambert 
exception in accordance with this Court’s decision in Bryant, the Court of Appeals 
created an inappropriate notice requirement resting upon a failure to distinguish 
between an affirmative action and purely passive conduct and conflating the analysis 
set out in Lambert with the analysis utilized in statutory construction cases such as 
Liparota. 
In response, defendant contends that the proper resolution of the critical 
question concerning whether an act is “wholly passive” for purposes of Lambert and 
Bryant hinges upon whether the surrounding circumstances would put a reasonable 
person on notice that he or she should have inquired as to whether there had been a 
change in law rather than upon whether the underlying conduct should be deemed 
active or passive.  Defendant argues that Lambert and Bryant rest upon a distinction 
between “active and passive notice, that is, the presence or absence of ‘circumstances 
that should alert the doer to the consequences of his deed,’ ” rather than upon a 
distinction between acts of commission and acts of omission.  According to defendant, 
his conduct should be deemed “wholly passive” given the absence of “circumstances 
that would [have] move[d] him to inquire if the General Assembly had recently 
criminalized his otherwise innocuous conduct.”  Moreover, even if a defendant’s 
underlying conduct is a component of the relevant constitutional analysis, possession, 
as compared to the purchase, of a substance is a passive act. 
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In the alternative, defendant contends that, even if we “decline[ ] to adopt the 
analysis of the Court of Appeals,” we should still affirm the result that it reached on 
the grounds “that an element of scienter must be read into [N.C.G.S.] § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) 
to comport with traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice, and the State 
failed to present evidence from which a jury could infer such an element.”  According 
to defendant, the Court of Appeals should have held that proof of defendant’s 
“awareness that a reasonable person in his shoes would have[ known] that the 
purchase of pseudoephedrine was an illegal act” constituted an essential element of 
the offense created by N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c).  In reaching a contrary conclusion, 
the Court of Appeals overlooked the fact that the United States Supreme Court has 
read a similar requirement into various criminal statutes for the purpose of ensuring 
the constitutionality of the challenged statute regardless of any evidence concerning 
actual Congressional intent. 
As this Court indicated in Bryant, the Lambert exception to the general rule 
that ignorance of the law is no excuse is “decidedly narrow.”  359 N.C. at 568, 614 
S.E.2d at 488.6  After carefully reviewing the record, we conclude that the Lambert 
exception does not operate to protect defendant from criminal liability given the facts 
                                            
6 Moreover, as the United States Supreme Court has stated, “application [of Lambert] 
has been limited, lending some credence to Justice Frankfurter’s colorful prediction in dissent 
that the case would stand as ‘an isolated deviation from the strong current of precedents—a 
derelict on the waters of the law.’ ”  Texaco, Inc. v. Short, 454 U.S. 516, 537 n.33, 70 L. Ed. 
2d 738, 756 n.33 (1982) (quoting Lambert, 355 U.S. at 232, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 233 (Frankfurter, 
J., dissenting)). 
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Opinion of the Court 
 
 
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contained in the present record.  Moreover, defendant’s alternative argument to the 
effect that guilt of the offense defined in N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) requires proof that 
the defendant knew of the illegality of his conduct is not properly before us.  Thus, 
we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals. 
The general rule that ignorance of the law or a 
mistake of law is no defense to criminal prosecution is 
deeply rooted in the American legal system.  Based on the 
notion that the law is definite and knowable, the common 
law presumed that every person knew the law.  This 
common-law rule has been applied by the Court in 
numerous cases construing criminal statutes. 
 
Bryant, 359 N.C. at 566, 614 S.E.2d at 487 (citations omitted) (quoting Cheek v. 
United States, 498 U.S. 192, 199, 112 L. Ed. 2d 617, 628 (1991)).  In Lambert, the 
United States Supreme Court sustained an as-applied challenge to a municipal 
ordinance making it unlawful for any individual who had been convicted of an 
offense that was a California felony or would have been a felony if committed in 
California to remain in Los Angeles for more than five days without registering with 
the Chief of Police.  Lambert, 355 U.S. at 226-27, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 230-31.  After noting 
that the defendant, unlike defendant in this case, had presented proof that she “had 
no actual knowledge of the [registration] requirement” and that the relevant 
ordinance did not require proof of “willfulness,” id. at 227, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 231, the 
United States Supreme Court stated that the relevant issue before it was “whether 
a registration act of this character violates due process where it is applied to a person 
who has no actual knowledge of his duty to register, and where no showing is made 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
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of the probability of such knowledge,” id. at 227, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 231.  Recognizing 
that, as a general proposition, lawmakers have wide latitude in defining the scope 
and extent of prohibited conduct, the Court pointed out that the defendant’s “conduct 
[was] wholly passive—mere failure to register” and did not constitute “the 
commission of acts, or the failure to act under circumstances that should alert the 
doer to the consequences of his deed.”  Id. at 228, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 231 (citations 
omitted).  Although the Court acknowledged the rule that “ignorance of the law will 
not excuse,” id. at 228, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 231 (quoting Shevlin–Carpenter Co. v. 
Minnesota, 218 U.S. 57, 68, 54 L. Ed. 930, 935 (1910)), and that the police power is 
“one of the least limitable” powers of government, id. at 228, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 231 
(quoting District of Columbia v. Brooke, 214 U.S. 138, 149, 53 L. Ed. 941, 945 (1909)), 
the Court pointed out that due process conditions the exercise of governmental 
authority upon the existence of proper notice “where a person, wholly passive and 
unaware of any criminal wrongdoing, is brought to the bar of justice for 
condemnation in a criminal case,” id. at 228, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 231.  In view of the fact 
that the ordinance at issue in Lambert did not condition a finding of guilt upon “any 
activity” whatsoever, id. at 229, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 232, and the fact that there were no 
surrounding “circumstances which might move one to inquire as to the necessity of 
registration,” id. at 229, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 232, “actual knowledge of the duty to register 
or proof of the probability of such knowledge and subsequent failure to comply [were] 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
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necessary before a conviction under the ordinance [could] stand” consistently with 
due process guarantees, id. at 229, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 232. 
The statutory provision at issue in Bryant required individuals convicted of 
certain sexual offenses in other states to register as a sex offender with the relevant 
North Carolina sheriff’s office within ten days after establishing residence in North 
Carolina or within fifteen days after the individual in question had entered North 
Carolina, whichever came first, with any person failing to comply with these 
requirements to be subject to criminal penalties.  359 N.C. at 561-63, 614 S.E.2d at 
483-85.  In that case, a person who had been convicted of committing an offense 
requiring registration in South Carolina and had been charged with violating the 
statutory provision in question challenged the provision’s constitutionality as applied 
to him given the absence of any requirement that the State “prove actual or probable 
notice of his duty to register to satisfy the due process notice requirement of Lambert.”  
Id. at 565, 614 S.E.2d at 486.  In rejecting the defendant’s argument, this Court stated 
that 
to be entitled to relief under the decidedly narrow Lambert 
exception, a defendant must establish that his conduct was 
“wholly passive” such that “circumstances which might 
move one to inquire as to the necessity of registration are 
completely lacking” and that [the] defendant was ignorant 
of his duty to register and there was no reasonable 
probability that [the] defendant knew his conduct was 
illegal. 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
-19- 
Id. at 568, 614 S.E.2d at 488 (quoting Lambert, 355 U.S. at 228-29, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 231-
32 (emphasis added)).  Defendant’s assertion to the contrary notwithstanding, this 
Court never indicated in Bryant that the distinction between active and passive 
conduct set out in Lambert revolves around the nature and extent of the notice with 
which the defendant had been provided rather than upon the nature and extent of 
the underlying conduct that led to the imposition of the criminal sanction.  Instead, 
this Court simply assumed that the defendant’s conduct amounted to a failure to act 
and proceeded to examine the extent to which his failure to comply with North 
Carolina’s sex offender registration requirements had occurred under circumstances 
suggesting that he should have registered upon moving from South Carolina to North 
Carolina.  Id. at 566-68, 614 S.E.2d at 486-88.  After making no suggestion that the 
defendant had actual notice of the necessity that he register as a sex offender in North 
Carolina after moving to this state and after concluding that the defendant’s case was 
“rich with circumstances that would move the reasonable individual to inquire of his 
duty to register in North Carolina such that [the] defendant’s conduct was not wholly 
passive and Lambert [was] not controlling,” id. at 568, 614 S.E.2d at 488, this Court 
held that the defendant’s case did “not fall within the narrow Lambert exception to 
the general rule that ignorance of the law is no excuse,” id. at 569, 614 S.E.2d at 488. 
Thus, because “[g]enerally[,] a legislature need do nothing 
more than enact and publish the law, and afford the 
citizenry a reasonable opportunity to familiarize itself with 
its terms and to comply,” Texaco, [Inc. v. Short,] 454 U.S. 
[516,] 532, 70 L. Ed. 2d [738,] 752[ (1982), this Court 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
-20- 
remained] bound by the rule that “[a]ll citizens are 
presumptively charged with knowledge of the law.”  Atkins 
v. Parker, 472 U.S. 115, 130, 86 L. Ed. 2d 81, 93 (1985); see 
also N. Laramie Land Co. v. Hoffman, 268 U.S. 276, 283, 
69 L. Ed. 953, 957 (1925) (“All persons are charged with 
knowledge of the provisions of statutes and must take note 
of the procedure adopted by them.”). 
Id. at 569, 614 S.E.2d at 488-89 (first and seventh alterations in original).  As a result, 
Bryant establishes that, in the event that a defendant’s conduct is not “wholly 
passive,” because it arises from either the commission of an act or a failure to act 
under circumstances that reasonably should alert the defendant to the likelihood that 
inaction would subject him or her to criminal liability, Lambert simply does not apply. 
A defendant commits the offense delineated in N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) in the 
event that he or she has “the power and intent to control [the] disposition or use” of 
the substance that the defendant is charged with possessing, State v. Harvey, 281 
N.C. 1, 12, 187 S.E.2d 706, 714 (1972), with knowledge of the identity of the substance 
that the defendant is alleged to have possessed, Galaviz–Torres, 368 N.C. at 49, 772 
S.E.2d at 437 (citation omitted).  The undisputed evidence contained in the present 
record tends to show that defendant actively procured the pseudoephedrine product 
that he was convicted of possessing over a month after it had become unlawful for 
him to do so and almost six months after the enactment of N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c).  
Moreover, defendant has not argued in either this Court or the lower courts that he 
was ignorant of the fact that he possessed a pseudoephedrine product or that he had 
previously been convicted of methamphetamine possession.  As defendant himself 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
-21- 
acknowledged, his conduct differs from the failure to register at issue in Lambert and 
Bryant.  Since defendant’s conviction rests upon his own active conduct rather than 
a “wholly passive” failure to act, there is no need for us to determine whether the 
surrounding circumstances should have put defendant on notice that he needed to 
make inquiry into his ability to lawfully purchase products containing 
pseudoephedrine.  As a result, defendant’s as-applied challenge to the 
constitutionality of N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) necessarily fails. 
Liparota and other similar decisions, whether considered in conjunction with 
or in addition to Lambert, do not call for a different result.  In Liparota, the United 
States Supreme Court considered what “mental state, if any, that the Government” 
needed to show, 471 U.S. at 423, 85 L. Ed. 2d at 438, in order to establish that the 
defendant had violated a federal statute making it a crime to “knowingly” use, 
transfer, acquire, alter, or possess food stamps “ ‘in any manner not authorized by 
[the statute] or the regulations,’ ” id. at 423, 85 L. Ed. 2d at 438 (alteration in original) 
(quoting 7 U.S.C. § 2024(b)(1) (1977)), with the specific issue before the Court in that 
case being whether the term “knowingly” should be construed so as to require the 
Government to prove that the defendant was aware that he was acting in a manner 
not authorized by the applicable law, id. at 420-21, 85 L. Ed. 2d at 437.  As a result, 
Liparota, like a number of the other decisions upon which defendant relies,7 is a 
                                            
7 For example, see Elonis v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, ___, ___, 192 L. Ed. 2d 1, 8, 17 
(2015) (interpreting a federal statute making “it a crime to transmit in interstate commerce 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
-22- 
statutory construction case rather than one, like Lambert, in which the 
constitutionality of a statute was at issue.  While these cases are arguably pertinent 
to defendant’s statutory construction argument, they have no bearing on the 
constitutionality of N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) in the face of defendant’s Lambert-
based challenge.  However, since neither defendant nor the State sought review of 
the Court of Appeals’ determination that the offense defined in N.C.G.S. § 90-
95(d1)(1)(c) does not include any sort of scienter or specific intent requirement over 
and above the knowledge requirement necessary for guilt of any possession-based 
offense by either noting an appeal or filing a discretionary review petition, 
defendant’s statutory construction argument is not properly before us.  See N.C. R. 
App. P. 16(a) (stating that “[r]eview by the Supreme Court after a determination by 
the Court of Appeals, whether by appeal of right or by discretionary review, is to 
determine whether there is error of law in the decision of the Court of Appeals” and 
that, “[e]xcept when the appeal is based solely upon the existence of a dissent in the 
                                            
‘any communication containing any threat . . .  to injure the person of another’ ” as requiring 
proof that the defendant intended to issue threats or knew that his communications would 
be viewed as threats (ellipsis in original) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 875(c) 1994))); United States v. 
X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64, 68, 78, 130 L. Ed. 2d 372, 378, 385 (1994) (interpreting 
a federal statute prohibiting persons from “knowingly” transporting, shipping, receiving, 
distributing, or reproducing a visual depiction, if such depiction “ ‘involves the use of a minor 
engaging in sexually explicit conduct,’ ” to require proof that the defendant knew of the 
sexually explicit nature of the material and the age of the individuals depicted in the video 
(quoting 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(1)(A), -(a)(2)(A) (1988 ed. and Supp. V))); Morissette, 342 U.S. at 
248, 271, 96 L. Ed. at 292, 304 (interpreting a federal statute providing that “ ‘whoever 
embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts’ ” property of the federal government shall 
be fined and imprisoned to require that the defendant have “knowledge of the facts, though 
not necessarily the law, that made the taking a conversion” (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 641 (1948))). 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
Opinion of the Court 
 
 
-23- 
Court of Appeals, review in the Supreme Court is limited to consideration of the 
issues stated in the notice of appeal filed pursuant to Rule 14(b)(2) or the petition for 
discretionary review and the response thereto filed pursuant to Rule 15(c) and (d), 
unless further limited by the Supreme Court, and properly presented in the new 
briefs required by Rules 14(d)(1) and 15(g)(2) to be filed in the Supreme Court”); see 
also Estate of Fennell v. Stephenson, 354 N.C. 327, 331-32, 554 S.E.2d 629, 632 (2001) 
(stating that “this Court’s review of the Court of Appeals decision is limited to the 
issues raised by [the] defendants’ petition for discretionary review” because the 
plaintiffs had failed to file their own discretionary review petition or a conditional 
discretionary review petition).  As a result, given that defendant has failed to 
establish that his conduct in possessing pseudoephedrine was “wholly passive,” 
Bryant, 359 N.C. at 568, 614 S.E.2d at 488, we hold that defendant’s conviction for 
violating N.C.G.S. § 95-90(d1)(1)(c) did not result in a violation of his federal 
constitutional right to due process of law and, accordingly, reverse the decision of the 
Court of Appeals. 
REVERSED. 
 
 
Justice MORGAN dissenting 
While I agree with my learned colleagues in the majority that the Court of 
Appeals’ interpretation of the applicability of Liparota v. United States, 471 U.S. 419, 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
MORGAN, J., dissenting 
 
-24- 
105 S. Ct. 2084, 85 L. Ed. 2d 434 (1985) is misplaced, nonetheless I embrace the lower 
court’s view that the narrow exception to the time-honored adage “ignorance of the 
law will not excuse” as articulated in Lambert v. California, 355 U.S. 225, 78 S. Ct. 
240, 2 L. Ed. 2d 228 (1957) is applicable in the instant case regarding the properness 
of notice and due process.  In addition, I consider the majority’s interpretation of the 
phrase “wholly passive” as originally coined in Lambert and applied by this Court in 
State v. Bryant, 359 N.C. 554, 614 S.E.2d 479 (2004), superseded by statute, 2006 N.C. 
Sess. Laws, Ch. 247, on other grounds as recognized in State v. Moore, 240 N.C. App. 
465, 478, 770 S.E.2d 131, 141, disc. review denied, 368 N.C. 353, 776 S.E.2d 854 (2015) 
to be rigidly restrictive, particularly in light of this Court’s own construction of this 
phrase in Bryant, and therefore I dissent.  
In Lambert, a criminal defendant was found guilty of violating a registration 
provision of Los Angeles, California’s Municipal Code because, as a person who had 
been “convicted of an offense punishable as a felony in the State of California,” she 
“remain[ed] in Los Angeles for a period of more than five days without registering” 
with the city’s Chief of Police.  Lambert, 355 U.S. at 226, 78 S. Ct. at 241-42, 2 L. Ed. 
2d at 230.  As a resident of Los Angeles for over seven years at the time of her arrest 
on suspicion of another offense, the defendant argued that her due process rights 
under the United States Constitution were violated with regard to the application of 
the city’s registration law to her, because she had no actual knowledge of the 
requirement to register pursuant to the Los Angeles Municipal Code.  Id. at 226, 78 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
MORGAN, J., dissenting 
 
-25- 
S. Ct. at 241-42, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 230-31.  In framing the legal issue in this case as a 
question of “whether a registration act of this character violates due process where it 
is applied to a person who has no actual knowledge of his duty to register, and where 
no showing is made of the probability of such knowledge,” the nation’s highest court 
held that the Code’s registration provision as applied to the defendant violated the 
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Id. at 227, 229-30, 78 S. Ct. at 
242-44, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 231-32. 
Defendant in the case sub judice cited the Lambert case as persuasive 
authority to support his position addressed by this dissent that his federal due 
process rights were violated by the application of the statute at issue to him because 
of his lack of proper notice of then newly-enacted N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c), which 
had taken effect barely a month before defendant’s proscribed pseudoephedrine 
purchase.  Pursuant to the statute, his possession of such a substance was illegal in 
light of his prior methamphetamine convictions.  Regarding the application of 
constitutional due process principles to the operation of statutes that create an 
imposition upon individuals convicted of a certain class of offenses that does not exist 
for the general population, I find the defendant in Lambert and the current defendant 
to be similarly situated.  In Lambert, the defendant was required by law to register 
as a convicted felon if her stay in the city exceeded five days, which was not a 
registration requirement imposed on others; here, defendant was required by law to 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
MORGAN, J., dissenting 
 
-26- 
refrain from possessing pseudoephedrine as a person convicted of methamphetamine 
offenses, which was not a possession restriction imposed on others. 
I also find that the defendant in the case at bar is similarly situated to the 
Lambert defendant in the resolution of the legal issue in Lambert which was ideally 
identified by the United States Supreme Court.  The high court found, in applying its 
due process analysis to the dual components of the framed issue in Lambert, that the 
Los Angeles Municipal Code registration provision violated that defendant’s due 
process rights because she had no knowledge of the duty to register and there was no 
showing made by the prosecution as to the probability of such knowledge by the 
defendant.  Id. at 227-28, 78 S. Ct. at 242-43, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 231.  While citing the 
phrase “ignorance of the law will not excuse,” the United States Supreme Court 
conversely recognized that the exercise of this legal axiom is limited by due process 
considerations.  Id. at 228, 78 S. Ct. at 243, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 231.  The Court went on to 
explain: 
Engrained in our concept of due process is the requirement 
of notice.  Notice is sometimes essential so that the citizen 
has the chance to defend charges.  Notice is required before 
property interests are disturbed, before assessments are 
made, before penalties are assessed.  Notice is required in 
a myriad of situations where a forfeiture might be suffered 
for mere failure to act.  Recent cases illustrat[e] th[is] point 
. . . .  These cases involved only property interests in civil 
litigation.  But the principle is equally appropriate where 
a person, wholly passive and unaware of any wrongdoing, 
is brought to the bar of justice for condemnation in a 
criminal case. 
 
Id. (citations omitted). 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
MORGAN, J., dissenting 
 
-27- 
I find these observations to be pertinent and applicable to the present case, 
just as the United States Supreme Court articulated them as insightful direction in 
Lambert.  While ignorance of the law typically will not excuse one from criminal 
culpability, the operation of this routine legal paradigm must take a proverbial 
backseat when one’s constitutional due process rights, undergirded by the concept of 
notice, are otherwise sacrificed.  In the instant case, as in Lambert, the defendant has 
claimed that he had no knowledge of the law at issue when he purchased 
pseudoephedrine on 5 January 2014 and was therefore in unlawful possession of the 
medication which otherwise would have been in his lawful possession if the purchase 
had been made prior to the 1 December 2013 change in the law which did not apply 
to the general population, nor even all convicted felons, but rather only to a particular 
subset of convicted felons.  Also in the present case, like Lambert, there has been no 
showing made of the probability that defendant knew of this change in the law which 
rendered illegal for him such activity that was legal for him a mere 36 days prior to 
his arrest.  The majority’s fervent embrace of the maxim that ignorance of the law 
provides no excuse supplies an untenable compromise of defendant’s due process 
rights.  Indeed, the well-established existence of a law and one’s ignorance of it is 
markedly different from the newly-created existence of a law and one’s unawareness 
of it, especially when it is a change in the law to make what was recently lawful 
suddenly unlawful and when it does not apply to everyone. 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
MORGAN, J., dissenting 
 
-28- 
In my opinion, just as the majority fails to employ an appropriate application 
of the Lambert principle regarding due process wherein ignorance of the law by a 
criminal defendant is indisputable, the majority’s unfortunate position is exacerbated 
by its strained literal interpretation of the phrase “wholly passive” in Lambert.  The 
United States Supreme Court christened the term in Lambert to describe the lack of 
affirmative conduct by the defendant in that case—the failure to register one’s 
presence—and to fit it into the framework of an individual’s right to due process 
through the requirement of notice.  The majority has focused so intently upon the 
“wholly passive” description of the Lambert defendant’s proscribed conduct of failure 
to register that it is unable to clearly view the fullness of the relationship between 
due process and the required notice concerning the violation of criminal law. 
The majority’s position is faulty regarding its literal application of the phrase 
“wholly passive” on two fronts.  Firstly, the United States Supreme Court in Lambert 
used the defendant’s “wholly passive” failure to register as an example of the broad 
need to correctly balance constitutional due process with the “ignorance of the law 
will not excuse” axiom.  The Court, in its discussion of the concept of due process 
through the requirement of notice in Lambert, spoke in sweeping terms about the 
importance of these legal tenets, without mentioning whether or not the illegal 
conduct involved was an offense of commission of an act or an offense of an omission 
to act.  The high court thereupon applied its global look at these principles to the 
defendant’s circumstances in Lambert, described her Municipal Code violation of 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
MORGAN, J., dissenting 
 
-29- 
failure to register as behavior which was “wholly passive,” continued its analysis that 
this failure to register abrogated the breadth and depth of the integration of due 
process and notice, and ultimately determined that the application of the challenged 
registration law to the defendant’s “wholly passive” failure to register was 
unconstitutional.  In the case sub judice, the majority’s occupation by the “wholly 
passive” categorization of the Lambert defendant’s criminal act of omission has 
prevented it from fully grasping the wider requirement to apply constitutional due 
process and notice requirements so as to protect defendant’s identical rights in the 
current case. 
Secondly, this Court utilized the “wholly passive” language in Lambert to both 
discuss and decide our decision in Bryant.  The majority in the instant case heavily 
relies upon Bryant, a criminal action in which a defendant, who was a convicted sex 
offender in the state of South Carolina, was notified by the South Carolina 
Department of Corrections prison officials of his lifelong requirement to register with 
that state due to his sex offender status.  Id. at 556, 614 S.E.2d at 480.  Although the 
defendant was notified of this duty in verbal and written form, he failed to “provide 
written notice to the county sheriff where s/he was last registered in South Carolina 
within 10 days of the change of address to a new state,” when the defendant moved 
out of the state of South Carolina and relocated in North Carolina.  Id. at 556-57, 614 
S.E.2d at 481 (emphasis omitted).  The defendant likewise was deficient in his 
compliance with his South Carolina sex offender requirement that he “must send 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
MORGAN, J., dissenting 
 
-30- 
written notice of change of address to the county Sheriff’s Office in the new county 
and the county where s/he previously resided within 10 days of moving to a new 
residence.”  Id. (emphasis omitted).  Although the defendant moved to Winston-
Salem, North Carolina and thereby established a residence in Forsyth County, 
nonetheless he failed to register upon establishing residency in North Carolina and 
did not notify the appropriate authorities in South Carolina of his out-of-state move.  
Id. at 557-58, 614 S.E.2d at 481-82.  The defendant was convicted in this state of 
failing to register as a sex offender and attaining the status of habitual felon.  Id. at 
558, 614 S.E.2d at 482.  On appeal, the defendant argued that North Carolina’s sex 
offender registration statute was unconstitutional as applied to an out-of-state 
offender who lacked notice of his duty to register upon moving to North Carolina.  Id. 
at 558, 614 S.E.2d at 482.  The defendant relied almost exclusively upon Lambert in 
arguing his position on appeal to this Court.  Id. at 564, 614 S.E.2d at 485.  We found 
in Bryant that the defendant was not entitled to the application of Lambert.  Id. at 
568-69, 614 S.E.2d at 487-88.  In this Court’s decision, we explained: 
We find this case rich with circumstances that would 
move the reasonable individual to inquire of his duty to 
register in North Carolina such that defendant’s conduct 
was not wholly passive and Lambert is not controlling.  
First, defendant had actual notice of his lifelong duty to 
register with the State of South Carolina as a convicted sex 
offender.  Second, defendant had actual notice that he must 
register as a convicted sex offender in South Carolina for 
“similar offenses from other jurisdictions” and had a duty 
to inform South Carolina officials of a move out of state 
“within 10 days of the change of address to a new state,” 
which defendant failed to do.  Third, defendant himself 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
MORGAN, J., dissenting 
 
-31- 
informed law enforcement authorities that he had been 
convicted of a sex offense in Florida.  These circumstances 
coupled with the pervasiveness of sex offender registration 
programs certainly constitute circumstances which would 
lead the reasonable individual to inquire of a duty to 
register in any state upon relocation. 
 
Id. at 568, 614 S.E.2d at 488 (citations omitted) (emphasis in original).  This 
explanation extracts pivotal terminology from the instructional language employed 
by the nation’s Supreme Court in Lambert when it established the mandatory 
standard, which we expressly cited in Bryant, which I find to be the guiding rationale 
for adaptation in the present case and which I determine that the defendant has 
satisfied: 
Therefore, to be entitled to relief under the decidedly 
narrow Lambert exception, a defendant must establish 
that his conduct was “wholly passive” such that 
“circumstances which might move one to inquire as to the 
necessity of registration are completely lacking” and that 
defendant was ignorant of his duty to register and there 
was no reasonable probability that defendant knew his 
conduct was illegal.  Lambert, 355 U.S. at 228-29, 78 S. Ct. 
243-44, 2 L. Ed. 2d at 231-32) (emphasis added). 
 
Id. at 568, 614 S.E.2d at 488.  This Court’s additional emphasis indicates that it 
defined the crucial phrase “wholly passive” as turning on whether the attendant 
circumstances could reasonably be seen as providing notice. 
With the majority’s determination that Bryant is controlling authority in the 
case at bar, it compounds the problematic analysis that it originally employs in the 
majority’s erroneous premise that the requirement of a “wholly passive” act 
automatically disqualifies the current defendant from constitutional due process and 
STATE V. MILLER 
 
MORGAN, J., dissenting 
 
-32- 
intrinsic notice requirements where ignorance of the law is an existing circumstance.  
This compounded misdirection is further accentuated by the recitation of the aspects 
that are present in Bryant which clearly distinguish it from the case sub judice.  While 
there are a litany of facts and circumstances occurring in Bryant that render the 
narrow Lambert exception as inapposite to the Bryant defendant, as this Court 
correctly decided, no such characteristics arise here.  Indeed, the defendant in the 
instant case is deemed not to have had actual notice about the change in the law or 
the change in his status under the new law governing his ability to legally possess 
pseudoephedrine.  Nor did the defendant here inform law enforcement authorities 
about any matters that would demonstrate his awareness about the change in the 
law or the change in his status under the new law.  In summarizing the above 
delineation of factors quoted in Bryant and applying them to the present case, there 
are no circumstances here which would lead the reasonable individual to know, or 
even inquire about, a duty to refrain from the possession of pseudoephedrine due to 
a recent change in the law which turned defendant’s heretofore legal possession of 
the substance into a criminal offense. 
Since I would find N.C.G.S. § 90-95(d1)(1)(c) unconstitutional as applied to 
defendant under these facts and circumstances, consistent with my interpretation of 
Lambert, and the critical distinguishing features of Bryant, I respectfully dissent.   
Justice BEASLEY joins in this dissenting opinion.