Kansas Attorney General Opinion 2022-003

February 10, 2022
ATTORNEY GENERAL OPINION NO. 2022- 3
Kirk D. Thompson, Director
Kansas Bureau of Investigation
1620 SW Tyler St.
Topeka, KS 66612
Re: 	Criminal 	Procedure—Offender 	Registration—Registration 	of 	Offender;
Duties of Court, Correctional Facility, Treatment Facility, Registering Law
Enforcement Agency, Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Attorney General
Time Period in Which Required to Register; Termination of Registration
Requirement; 	Effect 	of 	Statutory 	Amendments 	after 	Expiration 	of
Registration Period
Synopsis: 	Persons who were convicted of crimes for which registration was required
under the Kansas Offender Registration Act (KORA) and who completed
their 10-year registration periods prior to the effective date of the 2011
amendments to K.S.A. 22-4906 are not required to re-register and complete
the longer periods of registration prescribed by L. 2011, ch. 95, § 6. Cited
herein: K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 22-4902, 22-4903, 22-4904, 22-4905, 22-4906,
22-4908, and 22-4909; L. 2011, ch. 95, § 6.
* 	* 	*
Dear Director Thompson:
As the Director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI), you request our opinion
regarding 	the 	retroactive 	application 	of 	an 	amendment 	to 	the 	Kansas 	Offender
Registration Act (KORA). 1 Specifically, you ask whether persons who complied with the
statutory registration requirements in effect at the time of their qualifying convictions and
completed their registration periods prior to July 1, 2011, when L. 2011, ch. 95 took effect,
1 	K.S.A. 22-4901 et seq.

Kirk D. Thompson, Director
Page 2
must again register and complete the longer periods of registration now prescribed by
K.S.A. 22-4906.
Background
The KORA is a comprehensive statutory scheme that defines "offenders" as those
persons convicted of specified crimes, 2 requires such persons to register,3 prescribes the
registration requirements by which offenders must abide, 4 fixes the durations of the
registration periods for "qualifying" crimes,5 and sets the penalties for failure to register
as directed. 6 The KORA places responsibilities not only on offenders, but also on the
district courts, correctional and treatment facilities, the KBI and other registering law
enforcement agencies, the attorney general, the state department of education, and the
secretary of health and environment. 7
Offenders' names, addresses, photographs, convictions, and other information are
posted on publicly-accessible websites. 8 The KBI's Offender Registration Unit (ORU)
receives registration forms and electronic data from registering entities, enters information
into the registered offender database (from which data is drawn for the registered offender
website), and maintains the central repository of offender registration records. 9 To
implement these duties, the KBI calculates an end-of-registration date (ERD) for each
offender based on the qualifying crime of conviction and the corresponding duration
assigned in the KORA. 10 You explain the difficulties in calculating such a date if an
individual is required to re-register, particularly, setting the start date of the additional 5-
or 15-year period, 11 and the difficulty of locating all offenders whose original registration
periods had ended prior to July 1, 2011, i.e., those who were convicted and completed
their criminal sentences prior to July 1, 2001 – more than 20 years ago.
You note that an answer to this question will enable jurisdictions across Kansas to take a
consistent approach. It will also provide guidance to prosecutors in determining whether
to charge an offender with violating the KORA, to defense attorneys in advising their
clients about the registration obligations attached to a charge, and to courts and
registering entities tasked with implementing the KORA. The implications of the question
for offenders are significant – being required to re-register more than 20 years after
completing their assigned registration periods could disrupt employment or family or
2 	K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4902, as amended by L. 2021, ch. 103, § 8 (listing crimes). Offenders are
classified as sex offenders, violent offenders, or drug offenders.
3 	K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4904.
4 	K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4905.
5 	K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4906.
6 	K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4903.
7 	K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4904.
8 	See K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4909.
9 	Opinion Request at 1.
10 Id. at 1-2.
11 Id. at 2. You note that the start date could be the date the individual's original registration period was
completed, the effective date of the 2011 amendments, or the date when the individual was notified of a
duty to re-register.

Kirk D. Thompson, Director
Page 3
personal relationships and would make them again subject to felony prosecution for any
violation of the Act.
An Illustration of the Issue
You provided a hypothetical in which an individual was convicted in 1995 of indecent
solicitation of a child. The 10-year term of offender registration prescribed by K.S.A. 1994
Supp. 22-4906(b) began to run upon his release in 1997. 12 Thus, his registration period
expired in 2007, before the 2011 amendments increased the duration of registration for
the crime to 25 years. You ask whether he is required to re-register to complete another
15 years' registration.
Statutory Analysis
Resolving your question requires analysis of both the pre- and post-2011 versions of the
K.S.A. 22-4906. The version in effect at the time of the hypothetical crime was K.S.A.
1994 Supp. 22-4906(b), which stated:
Upon the first conviction [of a sexually violent crime], liability for registration
terminates, if [the offender is] not confined, at the expiration of 10 years from
the date of conviction, or, if confined, at the expiration of 10 years from the
date of parole, discharge or release, if the convicted sex offender does not
again become liable to register as provided by this act during that period.
To interpret this statute, we apply the most fundamental rule of statutory interpretation,
that the intent of the Legislature governs if that intent can be ascertained. 13 That intent is
ascertained in the first instance from the language used by the Legislature, giving
common words their ordinary meanings. 14 The word “terminate” means “to come to an
end in time" and "bring to an end, close." 15 The statute also uses the phrase "expiration
of 10 years." The word "expiration" means "the fact of coming to an end or the point at
which something ends." 16 Thus, the plain language of the statute evinced the Legislature's
intent that liability to register would end after 10 years. 17
We now turn to the 2011 amendments that lengthened the duration of the duty to register
by eliminating the 10-year term and replacing it with 15- and 25-year terms, depending
12 For purposes of this illustration, it is assumed that the offender remained in compliance with his
registration responsibilities and was not incarcerated again during the 10-year registration period.
13 Ullery v. Othick, 304 Kan. 405, 409 (2016) (citations omitted).
14 Id.
15 Terminate. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terminate
(last accessed July 12, 2021).
16 Expire. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expire (last
accessed July 12, 2021).
17 Amendments in 2005 added tolling provisions such that periods of incarceration or knowing, willful
noncompliance with the KORA would not be counted toward the 10-year registration term. L. 2005, ch. 202,
§ 1. Thus, a registration period would not necessarily end at the expiration of 10 calendar years.

Kirk D. Thompson, Director
Page 4
on 	the 	qualifying 	crime. 18 	K.S.A. 	2012 	Supp. 	22-4906(a)(2) 	retained 	the 	words
“terminates” and “expiration.” It stated in pertinent part:
(a)(2) Except as otherwise provided by the Kansas offender registration
act, 	the 	duration 	of 	registration 	terminates, 	if 	not 	confined, 	at 	the
expiration of 15 years from the date of conviction [unless tolled]. 19
The amendment is silent on whether the new 15- and 25-year terms were to be imposed
on persons who had already completed their prescribed 10-year registration terms.
Because we are unable to determine the Legislature’s intent from the language of the
statute, we turn to the circumstances surrounding the bill’s passage and the purpose to
be accomplished by the change. 20
The 	purpose 	of 	enacting 	the 	longer 	registration 	terms 	was 	to 	bring 	Kansas 	into
“substantial implementation” 21 of the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification
Act (SORNA).22 The amendments made Kansas eligible for federal grants.23 Although the
substantial implementation standards require, generally, that states register persons
convicted of sex crimes prior to the state's implementation of SORNA, the U.S. Attorney
General published Guidelines in 2008 recognizing that it "may not be possible for
jurisdictions to identify and register all sex offenders who fall within the SORNA
registration categories, particularly where they have left the justice system and merged
into the general population long ago." 24 The Supplemental Guidelines issued in January
18 The amendments also imposed lifetime registration for more crimes. L. 2011, ch. 95, § 6.
19 Id. The tolling provision from the 2005 amendments was also retained. K.S.A. 2006 Supp. 22-4906.
Subsection (b)(2) is comparable, but imposes a 25-year term for other enumerated crimes. The quoted
language remains unchanged in K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4906.
20 See State v. Quested, 302 Kan. 262, 268 (2015) (finding that legislative silence on a point created an
ambiguity; thus, “canons of construction, legislative history, the circumstances attending the statute's
passage, the purpose to be accomplished, and the effect the statute may have under the various
constructions suggested” may be considered to interpret the statute).
21 Supplemental Note on House Sub. for SB 137 (2011 Session).
22 34 U.S.C. § 20901 et seq. SORNA is Title I of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006,
Pub. L. 109-248. SORNA set registration periods for offenders at 15 years, 25 years, and lifetime. States
that "substantially implement" SORNA by enacting legislation, or amending existing statutes, to match those
registration periods and other aspects of SORNA become eligible for federal grants.
23 States that "substantially implement" SORNA by enacting legislation, or amending existing statutes, to
match those registration periods and other aspects of SORNA become eligible for federal grants. Office of
the U.S. Attorney General, The National Guidelines for Sex Offender Registration and Notification, 73 Fed.
Reg. 38030-01, 38036, 2008 WL 2594934 (July 2, 2008) (hereinafter, Guidelines). Kansas was deemed to
have "substantially implemented" SORNA after the 2011 amendments. U.S. Department of Justice, Office
of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking, Jurisdictions that have
Substantially Implemented SORNA, https://smart.ojp.gov/sorna/substantially-implemented (last accessed
July 28, 2021).
24 Guidelines, 73 Fed. Reg. at 38046 (discussing how SORNA standards should be applied to persons
who were convicted of sex offenses prior to its enactment). The Supplemental Guidelines extended this
reasoning to sex offenders who had fully exited the criminal justice system but later reenter it through a
misdemeanor prosecution for something other than a sex crime, recognizing that many jurisdictions would
not have the resources to examine a misdemeanor defendant's criminal history for a sex offense conviction
that could be subject to the longer registration periods prescribed by SORNA. Office of the U.S. Attorney

Kirk D. Thompson, Director
Page 5
2011 state that it is sufficient if jurisdictions register pre-SORNA-implementation sex
offenders who are in the system as prisoners, supervisees, or registrants, or who reenter
the system through a subsequent sex crime or felony conviction. 25 States are not required
to locate and register persons who had "fully exited the criminal justice system" by the
time of the state's implementation of SORNA.26 Specifically, “jurisdictions are not required
to register sex offenders in the retroactive classes whose SORNA registration periods
have already run.”27
Both sets of Guidelines were published and available to the Legislature when it acted with
the purpose of achieving substantial implementation with SORNA. It was not necessary,
for the purpose of achieving substantial-implementation status, for the new, longer terms
to be imposed on persons who had finished their registration terms. In light of the
legislative silence and the identified practical challenges to finding prior registrants, we
are reluctant to read into the statute a requirement to locate and re-register offenders who
had completed their registrations prior to July 1, 2011, and instead conclude that the
amendments did not impose a duty on registering agencies to identify, find, and re-
register prior registrants – and did not impose a duty on formerly-registered offenders to
re-register.
Further support for this conclusion comes from Attorney General Opinion No. 2003-20,
which considered a 2001 amendment to K.S.A. 22-4908. Prior to July 1, 2001, that statute
allowed an offender to seek a court order granting relief from registration requirements if
the offender had completed 10 years of registration or if the offender’s conviction had
been set aside. 28 The 2001 amendment eliminated this opportunity for relief.29 The
Attorney General Opinion concluded that persons who had been granted relief from
registration 	prior 	to 	July 	1, 	2001 	were 	not 	required 	to 	register 	again 	after 	the
amendment.30 In other words, where the obligation to register was terminated in
accordance with the law in effect prior to the amendment, no new obligation to register
was imposed by the amendment. Likewise, here, we conclude the 2011 amendments did
not impose a new obligation to register on persons whose obligation to register had
already terminated by operation of law.
General, Supplemental Guidelines for Sex Offender Registration and Notification, 76 Fed. Reg. 1630-01,
1639, 2011 WL 65547 (Jan. 11, 2011) (hereinafter, Supplemental Guidelines).
25 Supplemental Guidelines, 76 Fed. Reg. at 1639.
26 Id.
27 Id. at 1636.
28 K.S.A. 2000 Supp. 22-4906(a), (c).
29 L. 2001, ch. 163, § 2 ("No person required to register as an offender pursuant to the [KORA] shall be
granted an order relieving the offender of further registration under the act.") K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4908
contains the same language. Amendments to the statute were proposed in 2021 HB 2349 to, inter alia,
allow courts to grant relief from the extended periods of registration imposed by the 2011 KORA
amendments.
30 Kansas Att’y Gen. Op. 2003-20 at 3.

Kirk D. Thompson, Director
Page 6
Caselaw
You posed your question because there are no cases on point. We do find instructive,
though, cases concerning retroactive application 31 of the 2005 and 2011 amendments to
offenders who were still under a duty to register at the time of the amendments. We also
discuss statute-of-limitations cases that explicitly evaluate an analogous situation.
In State v. Meredith, 32 the Kansas Supreme Court rejected a drug offender's challenge to
the retroactive application of the 2011 amendments that increased the registration period
from 10 years to 15 years for his crime.33 The offender was two years into his original
registration period when the amendments became effective. In State v. Reed, 34 the
Kansas Supreme Court held that applying the 2005 tolling provision amendment to the
defendant was appropriate, twice noting that the tolling provision was enacted "shortly
before" the offender's original registration period terminated. 35 In the most recent
challenge to the retroactive application of lifetime registration requirements, our Supreme
Court noted that the 2011 amendments were put in place “just before [the offender’s]
registration period was about to expire.” 36 In each of these cases, the Court was careful
to note that the offender was under a duty to register at the time of the amendments—in
other words, the offender’s original duty to register had not expired. The offender was
subject to prosecution for failure to register at the time of the amendment, and the
amendment lengthened the time that such prosecution could occur.
31 The Kansas Supreme Court has repeatedly held that offender registration is a civil regulatory scheme,
not a punishment, and therefore is not subject to challenge on constitutional grounds. See, e.g., State v.
Petersen-Beard, 304 Kan. 192, 208-09 (2016) (holding that lifetime registration is not punishment for ex
post facto, double jeopardy, or Eighth Amendment purposes or § 9 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights);
State v. Reed, 306 Kan. 899, 904 (2017) (holding that retroactive application of a tolling provision added by
a 2005 amendment to K.S.A. 22-4906 did not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause); State v. N.R., No. 119,796,
495 P.3d 16, 2021 WL 4217146 (Kan. Sept. 17, 2021) (holding that the imposition of lifetime registration
requirements on a person who was 14 at the time of the offense was not punishment; rejecting offender’s
as-applied challenge to K.S.A. 2011 Supp. 22-4906). See also Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84, 105-06 (2003)
(construing Alaska’s sex offender registration act that is similar to that of Kansas and holding that the act
was nonpunitive and therefore its retroactive application did not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause). Thus,
the prohibition on ex post facto application of later-enacted punishments does not prohibit application of the
later-enacted increase in registration duration. See Petersen-Beard, 304 Kan. at 208-09.
32 306 Kan. 906 (2017).
33 Id. at 906-07.
34 306 Kan. 899 (2017).
35 Id. at 900 (applying Petersen-Beard, 304 Kan.192).
36 State v. N.R., 495 P.3d 16, 19, 2021 WL 4217146 at *21 (Kan. 2021). See also State v. Davidson, 495
P.3d 9, 2021 WL 4217942 (Kan. 2021) (rejecting constitutional challenge by offender whose original 10-
year registration period began in 2002 and was still in effect at the time of the 2011 amendments).

Kirk D. Thompson, Director
Page 7
We turn now to another setting in which a person's exposure to prosecution terminates
upon the expiration of a set period of years: 	statute of limitations cases. In State v.
Nunn, 37 our Supreme Court considered the retroactive application of an amendment that
increased the statute of limitations for certain sex offenses from two years to five years.
The Court held that such an amendment "may be applied to crimes committed prior to
the effective date of the amendment so long as the statute of limitations had not expired
prior to the effective date of the amendment."38 The Court continued, "[o]f course, if the
statute being amended has run on the specific crime charged, then the amendment
cannot be applied to resurrect a prosecution which has already been time-barred." 39 Once
the statute of limitations runs, a "complete defense" arises.40
The situation presented here is analogous because the expiration of a registration period
is akin to the expiration of a statute of limitations – both define the end of a person's
exposure to potential prosecution for a specific offense. During the time an offender is
under a duty to register, he is subject to felony prosecution for noncompliance. 41 When
an offender has successfully completed the registration period, he is no longer subject to
prosecution for failure to register. Applying the construct of Nunn, and in accord with
Attorney General Opinion 2003-20, we conclude that an offender’s duty to register, once
terminated in accordance with law, is not "resurrected” by a change in the law.
Conclusion
Nothing in the language of L. 2011, ch. 95, § 6 amending K.S.A. 22-4906 indicates that it
was intended to apply to persons who had completed their registration terms prior to the
amendment, and it was not necessary to apply it to those persons to achieve the stated
purpose of the legislation: substantial implementation of SORNA. The federal Guidelines
issued in 2008 and 2011 made clear that it would be sufficient, for SORNA implementation
purposes, for jurisdictions to register sex offenders who were in the criminal justice
37 244 Kan. 207 (1989).
38 Id. at 218 (emphasis added).
39 Id.; see also State v. Noah, 246 Kan. 291, 295 (1990) (explaining that the State "reserves the right to
change the prescription or period of limitation of criminal offenses until it has accrued to the benefit of the
accused").
40 Noah, 246 Kan. at 295. Further, "where a complete defense has arisen under such a statute, it cannot
be taken away by a subsequent repeal thereof." Id.; see also Tonge v. Werholtz, 279 Kan. 481 (2005)
(considering retroactive application of a regulatory amendment regarding collection of disciplinary
restitution from an inmate; stressing that the restitution was not part of a criminal sentence and therefore
not subject to an ex post facto challenge).
41 K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 22-4903. Although a district court concluded that the existence of criminal penalties
for noncompliance turns the KORA into a punitive scheme subject to ex post facto challenges, the Court of
Appeals rejected this conclusion, citing Petersen-Beard. State v. Klima, 2016 WL 17178274 at *4 (Kan.
App. 2016) (unpublished opinion). The defendant in Klima was under a 10-year registration period at the
time the 2011 amendments became effective; the amendments imposed lifetime registration for his crime.

Kirk D. Thompson, Director
Page 8
system at the time of SORNA implementation – a class that does not include offenders
who had completed their registration terms. The Legislature used the terms "terminate"
and "expiration," which mean "to end," and the statute of limitations cases teach that upon
the expiration of the limitations period, a person's exposure to prosecution ends and is
not resurrected by later legislation. We opine, consistent with Attorney General Opinion
2003-20, that once a person’s obligation to register ends in accordance with law, no new
obligation arises upon an amendment to the law. 42
For these reasons, we opine that persons who successfully completed their offender
registration requirements prior to the 2011 amendments to K.S.A. 22-4906 are not
required to re-register and complete additional years of registration for those crimes.
Sincerely,
Derek Schmidt
Kansas Attorney General
Sarah L. Shipman
Deputy Attorney General
DS:SS:AF:sb
42 We express no opinion on the ability of the Legislature to explicitly impose a re-registration requirement.