The Dobbs Wire: New SORNA regulations issued – effective Jan. 7, 2022
Headsup! New SORNA regulations were issued today – take effect Jan. 7, 2022. They will impact everybody on a sex offense registry.
In the last months of the Trump administration the Department of Justice (DOJ) suddenly issued draft regulations under the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).  The draft regulations were published as required and hundreds of comments received.  After the comment period ended there was no response from the government. The silence continued as Trump exited and Biden took office. Any hopes that Biden might simply do nothing and leave the regulations in limbo evaporated. Today’s Federal Register has the finalized regulations. They’re lengthy and complicated, lots of questions as to what they mean and how they will be enforced. Without a doubt these federal regulations will make life even more hellish for the hundreds of thousands (900,000+ in 2018 according to National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) listed on state sex offense registries –counting their families and significant others, several million people will be impacted. While the states are at the center of registration matters, these changes expand the responsibilities that registrants have under federal law, creating more trip wires and opportunities for prosecution. The screws are being tightened, again. The existing registry regime has produced no benefit to public safety. A more draconian regime will not change that.  As of 2021 every state has had a registry for 25 years. There’s still no coherent cry to get rid of these ineffective, destructive laws. I hope these SORNA changes will bring more people into this fight.
The regulations are linked below as published in the Federal Register. They’re online here:
Registration Requirements Under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (OAG 157; RIN 1105-AB52)
Also attached is a letter from Daniel Hansmeier, Appellate Chief of the Kansas Federal Public Defender to the Department of Justice that gives perspective on the changes. Excerpt: “The proposed rule defines crimes Congress never envisioned. It seeks to punish offenders who are plainly compliant with SORNA. The regulations do not interpret SORNA; they expand SORNA by defining lawful acts (or impossible acts) as crimes.”
Bill Dobbs, Publisher The Dobbs Wire info@thedobbswire.com 85 Fed. Reg. 49332 - FPD Comment 2021-26420
Let’s say I have a mortgage on my home. For years I make my payments on time. Finally, I make my last payment and I am now mortgage free. But then the bank sends me a letter reminding me a payment is due in the coming month. What would my response be? You guessed it. This is the same thing that is happening with registered citizens. The debt has been paid yet the ‘bank’ wants another payment. It’s time to stand up and tell the government to go ‘shove’ their illegal requirements made possible only by ex post facto regulations.
I have some sage advice for anyone getting close to going to court, to ask to be removed from the registry. KEEP that to yourself. Let me explain. If when you go into register or conversing with law enforcement that comes to your house, and you are bragging to them that this *@#$ will end soon because I am going to court, DONT do it.
All it takes is for one of them to trip you up and get a minor charge, to keep you for having a stellar record while on the government imposed life sentence on the registry. If you are going to court soon or in the near future, just be careful who you blab that too is all I am saying. It can come back to haunt you.
That happened to me when I was close to getting released from prison. But it wasn’t me blabbing, the unit posts the pre-release inmates in the common areas on the bulletin boards.
You wouldn’t believe how many inmates and guards tried to trip me up before my release. I didn’t breath well until I got outside the gates and in my parents car. I looked back for miles to see if we got pulled over and somehow I was released by mistake. But as we all now know, getting released from prison/community control or probation was only part of the battle due to the registry.
In closing, again, just keep your intentions on the removal process on the downlow as you never know what evil devious people are around you in everyday life. Even on here we have a lot of people who join the conversations that are “Wolves in sheep’s clothing” just waiting to pounce.
Registry or no registry I have no desire to step foot in the state of Florida. 6 years of the state being in thorn in my backside, the state can kiss the curb at a nuclear power plant.
Brandon
The only thing really keeping me here is my Parents. They are elderly and I pretty much take care of them. Most of my extended family is in other states and haven’t seen them in more than 30 years. My Mom and Dad are all I really have left if something were to happen to me. Getting arrested 3 decades ago almost killed my mother and she had a nervous break down. I own that and work every day to make it right, as much as is possible.