Opinion ID: 2738242
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Lewis’s Other Arguments

Text: Lewis makes three additional arguments, all based on a theory that the evidence does not place Lewis in Kansas between August 5, 2011 and July 25, 2012—the dates listed on the indictment. To start, he appears to claim that his abandonment of his Kansas residence likely occurred long before the period charged in the indictment. Thus, according to Lewis, he was not violating SORNA during the time period articulated by the government, and the triggering obligation, to the extent one existed, took place outside of the indictment window. On these grounds, Lewis suggests Murphy is distinguishable because the defendant in that case clearly was in Utah within the temporal time frame charged by the indictment. This argument, however, is flawed. Regardless of when Lewis left, he was violating the statute in Kansas during the indictment period because he never registered anywhere else. Kansas remained a jurisdiction involved, and there was sufficient evidence to show that (1) he abandoned his Kansas residence at some point in time; and (2) he never registered anywhere else during the indictment period. For this reason, he remained in violation of SORNA in Kansas until he updated his registration or, as here, was arrested. -17- Second, Lewis contends that the limited factual record permits an inference that he was still compliant with his registration requirements prior to October 1, 2011 because his periodic registration deadline 6 had not yet passed and he had not yet changed his residence under SORNA. Boiled down, this is just an argument that he never abandoned Kansas and thus was not required to update his registration until the next recurring registration date arrived. Accepting this argument would, in effect, grant sex offenders a license to be transitory, to move from place to place evading the registration requirements but maintaining their residence in a single district. Cf. Voice, 622 F.3d at 875 (“We reject the suggestion that a savvy sex offender can move to a different city and avoid having to update his SORNA registration by sleeping in a different shelter or other location every night.”). This line of reasoning is also mooted when the government proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the sex offender abandoned his departure residence. In this case, the government proved through evidence at trial that Lewis had abandoned his Kansas residence, and we see no error in that determination. 7 6 For a sex offender who does not change his status to trigger a mandatory reporting obligation, SORNA still requires in-person periodic updates at recurrent intervals depending on the severity of the offense. 42 U.S.C. § 16916. 7 For example, a government witness from the Lyon County sheriff’s office testified as to his unsuccessful efforts to locate Lewis at his former Kansas residence in the period before August 7, 2011. The government also proffered evidence that placed an unregistered Lewis in Atlanta in 2012. Taken as a whole, (continued...) -18- Finally, in his most all-encompassing argument, Lewis alleges that the government’s theory of the case is premised on the idea that a sex offender has an affirmative duty under federal law to tell the departure state he is leaving and moving to another state. But as we have said, this is only a partial truth: the offender is only required to inform the departure jurisdiction that he is leaving or has left if he does not register elsewhere within three days of departure. There is no unconditional obligation under federal law to contact the departure district; you are merely subject to prosecution in that jurisdiction if you fail to meet your obligation somewhere else. On this point, Lewis relies on United States v. DeJarnette, where the Ninth Circuit found that “the jurisdiction from which an offender departs is [not] always a jurisdiction involved pursuant to subsection (a) [of § 16913].” 741 F.3d 971, 984 (9th Cir. 2013). In DeJarnette, the defendant was convicted of sex crimes in California in 2001. He became a serial flouter of state and federal registration requirements and then absconded from California to Georgia in March of 2008. SORNA became retroactively applicable to pre-Act offenders in August of 2008, at which point the government indicted the defendant for violating SORNA’s initial registration requirement in California. Unlike post-Act offenders, the Ninth Circuit found that pre-Act offenders were not required to register in the 7 (...continued) this evidence was sufficient to prove that Lewis abandoned his Kansas residence. -19- jurisdiction of their conviction if it was different from their jurisdiction of residence upon SORNA’s retroactive application. Yes, the court did go on to reject the government’s argument that the defendant was required to register in California because it remained a “jurisdiction involved” under subsection (c). But the court did so in the context of establishing the extent of SORNA’s retroactivity and did not consider the circumstances of an offender’s post-Act absconding from his former residence to evade his registration requirement. In the end, none of these arguments convinces us to abandon our decision that venue for a § 2250 violation can lie in the departure district.