Opinion ID: 2647072
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: SMART Guidelines

Text: The SMART guidelines declare that “SORNA applies to all sex offenders, including those convicted of their registration offenses prior to the enactment of SORNA.” The UNITED STATES V. DEJARNETTE 11 National Guidelines for Sex Offender Registration and Notification, 73 Fed. Reg. 38,030, 38,063 (July 2, 2008) (“SMART Guidelines”). The guidelines also acknowledge, however, that “the normal initial registration procedure . . . will not be feasible in relation to certain special classes of sex offenders.” Id. The “specific problem,” according to the guidelines, “is one of timing”: [I]t is not always possible to carry out the initial registration procedures for sex offenders who are required to register under SORNA prior to release from imprisonment (or within three days of sentencing) for the registration offense. The situations in which there may be problems of this type, and the rules adopted for those situations are as follows . . . . Id. Then, under the heading “Retroactive Classes,” the guidelines go on to provide three examples that purportedly illustrate the initial registration of pre-Act offenders and announce the “rules adopted” for such offenders. Id. The first and second examples concern offenders like DeJarnette: “sex offenders with pre-SORNA or pre-SORNA implementation convictions who remain in the prisoner, supervision, or registered sex offender populations at the time of implementation.” Id. For such offenders, the guidelines state that “jurisdictions should endeavor to register them in conformity with SORNA as quickly as possible, including fully instructing them about the SORNA requirements, obtaining signed acknowledgments of such instructions, and 12 UNITED STATES V. DEJARNETTE obtaining and entering into the registry all information about them required under SORNA.” Id. In the government’s view, the last-quoted sentence shows that the guidelines require offenders like DeJarnette to “initially register . . . as quickly as possible” in the jurisdictions of their sex-offense convictions. As an initial matter, we note that the quoted language is addressed to jurisdictions, not offenders.3 We question whether this jurisdiction-directed language “validly specifies that the Act’s [initial] registration provisions apply” to any pre-Act offenders.4 Reynolds, 132 S. Ct. at 982. But we leave that question for another day because, to the extent that the guidelines apply subsection (a)’s initial registration requirement to any pre-Act offenders, they do so only for the subset of pre-Act offenders who were not already subject to registration requirements under pre-SORNA law. We reach this conclusion following a careful examination of the guideline examples that announce the “rules adopted” for preAct offenders who remained on supervised release at the time 3 See SMART Guidelines, 73 Fed. Reg. at 38,063 (“[J]urisdictions should endeavor to register them in conformity with SORNA as quickly as possible . . . .” (emphasis added)); id. (“Jurisdictions are accordingly authorized to phase in SORNA registration for such sex offenders in conformity with the [periodic in-person] appearance schedule of SORNA § 116[, 42 U.S.C. 16916].” (emphasis added)); id. at 38,063–64 (“In other words, sex offenders . . . must be registered by the jurisdiction when it implements the SORNA requirements in its system . . . .” (emphasis added)). 4 In the same vein, our dissenting colleague assumes without discussion that a regulation directed to registering jurisdictions that such jurisdictions should “endeavor to register [pre-SORNA offenders] in conformity with SORNA as quickly as possible,” is sufficient notice to a pre-SORNA offender of his obligation to register. See Dissent at 35–36. UNITED STATES V. DEJARNETTE 13 of SORNA’s implementation.5 SMART Guidelines, 73 Fed. Reg. at 38,063. “Example 1” describes a pre-Act offender who was “not registered near the time of sentencing or before release from imprisonment, because the state did not require registration for the offense in question at the time.” Id. The guidelines state that it will be “impossible” to register such an offender “near the time of his sentencing or before his release from imprisonment, because that time is past.” Id. This example also discusses a pre-Act offender under American Indian tribal law who “may not have been registered near the time of sentencing or release because the tribe had not yet established any sex offender registration program at the time.” Id. Such an offender would be required to register “by the SORNA standards” if he or she remained under supervision when the tribe implemented SORNA, “but the normal time frame for initial registration under SORNA will have passed . . . , so registration within that time frame is impossible.” Id. 5 The dissent observes that the guidelines’ examples are only illustrative. Dissent at 36. While this may be true, nonetheless, the examples clarify the meaning of the text to which they apply. See Tull v. United States, 69 F.3d 394, 397–98 (9th Cir. 1995) (concluding that examples offered in Treasury regulations, “[w]hile . . . not directly on point, . . . are redolent with meaning both in what they do say and in what they do not say”). We do not claim the examples’ support because they are “identical to Defendant’s situation.” Dissent at 36. Rather, “what [the examples] do say and . . . do not say” – their referring to a pre-Act offender as “initially registered” under a pre-SORNA scheme and their failure to say anything about initial registration in the offender’s jurisdiction of conviction, see infra – leads us to our conclusion. 14 UNITED STATES V. DEJARNETTE Example 1 suggests that, to the extent the Attorney General has applied “initial registration” to pre-Act offenders at all, that application is limited to offenders who – like the offenders in example 1 – had no registration obligations prior to SORNA. By contrast, DeJarnette has been subject to registration requirements under California law since 2006, when he was released from custody and entered the supervised release program.6 “Example 2” suggests that a registration obligation under a pre-SORNA scheme operates as the initial registration of a pre-Act offender. SMART Guidelines, 73 Fed. Reg. at 38,063. This example describes an offender who “was initially registered prior to his release from imprisonment on the basis of the jurisdiction’s existing law,” but was not subject to an ongoing registration requirement resembling SORNA’s periodic in-person verification scheme. Id.; see 42 U.S.C. § 16916. The guidelines state that such an offender “will have to be required to appear periodically for 6 DeJarnette’s state-law registration obligation remained in effect on August 1, 2008 – the date on which SORNA’s retroactivity provision became effective. See Valverde, 628 F.3d at 1160. Accordingly, we need not and do not determine whether the Attorney General has articulated with sufficient clarity the initial registration requirement that applies to pre-Act offenders who were under no existing registration obligations on August 1, 2008. We express no view as to whether DeJarnette, a federal sex offender, also had an existing registration obligation under SORNA’s precursor, the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act (“Wetterling Act”), Pub. L. No. 103-322, §§ 170101170303, 108 Stat. 1796, 2038–45 (1994). UNITED STATES V. DEJARNETTE 15 verification.” SMART Guidelines, 73 Fed. Reg. at 38,063. Example 2’s use of the phrase “initially registered” in connection with a pre-SORNA registration scheme tells us that “initial registration” is not a term of art; it simply refers to the first time that an offender is required to register. We also find it telling that periodic in-person verification is the only SORNA registration obligation that Example 2 imposes on pre-Act offenders who were subject to existing registration obligations when SORNA went into effect.7 The Attorney General could have used this example to also impose the requirement of registration in the jurisdiction of conviction where different from the jurisdiction of residence; he did not. We cannot help but conclude that the SMART guidelines do not apply the requirement of initial registration in the jurisdiction of conviction to pre-Act offenders who, like DeJarnette, were subject to existing registration obligations upon SORNA’s enactment and implementation. Such offenders either initially register under an existing state or federal scheme, or they violate state or pre-SORNA federal 7 The fact that “the offender in Example 2 was already part of an earlier registered sex offender population,” Dissent at 37, does not explain away the example’s failure to mention anything about “initial registration” in the offender’s jurisdiction of conviction. Under the dissent’s reading of “initial registration,” the fact of an offender’s prior registration is irrelevant to the offender’s obligation to register in her jurisdiction of conviction: even registered pre-Act offenders would be required to register “initially” in their jurisdictions of conviction. The example’s failure to mention such a requirement is equally anomalous whether the sex offender is or is not “part of an earlier registered sex offender population.” Thus, we find the anomaly telling. 16 UNITED STATES V. DEJARNETTE law by failing to do so.8 In any event, they have no initial registration obligations under SORNA § 16913(a).9