Registry Wire

The equipment

The Department of Corrections' GPS contract (C2929, now held by Allied Universal and running to June 30, 2028) prices renewal years for a "TWO PIECE MODEL" on active GPS. The person wears a bracelet and must keep a separate tracking unit, the RTC, within range. The contract's equipment schedule also lists a one-piece device. Monitoring is mandatory for many people on sex-offense probation under § 948.30(3).

What the courts have held

A violation of probation must be willful and substantial. In King v. State (1st DCA 2019), a man left the unit on its charger for about five minutes. The court held that "Evidence that a probationer walked away from a monitoring device for a brief period of time is not competent, substantial evidence of a substantial and willful violation." Channell (1st DCA 2016) and Douglas (2d DCA 2022) reversed on similar reasoning. Douglas involved a lost RTC unit and a 364-day jail sentence. Santos (1st DCA 2024) affirmed a revocation after a 49-minute alarm, prior alarms and an admission that the carrying rules were read and ignored. That affirmance was without opinion and is not precedent.

Why the jail stay comes first

An officer "may arrest" on "reasonable grounds" before anyone decides willfulness (§ 948.06(1)(a)). For a "violent felony offender of special concern", a category that covers many people on probation for listed sex offenses committed since 2007, the statute says they "shall remain in custody pending the resolution" of any violation other than nonpayment (§ 948.06(8)(d)). Other registrants need a judicial finding that they are "not a danger to the public" before release. In Leon County, a probation warrant silent on bond means no bond. The county's own reports put the average stay for people held only on a probation violation at 56 to 87 days in 2022–2024. Those reports do not separate equipment violations from other violations.

What is not verified

A reader reported that four people, several of them older, were jailed in Leon County after short separations, and that some stayed in jail after reinstatement. We have not verified those accounts. We found no public record of the reinstated-but-still-held sequence, no published department procedure on separation alerts and no lawsuit challenging the two-piece requirement. The full report includes the records requests prepared, comparisons with federal, Georgia, Virginia, Texas and California practice, and a 2016 federally funded study finding that single-piece systems are the more common choice nationally, and the remedies the statute already allows.

Who is covered

Section 775.215 applies to people convicted of five offenses, sexual battery (s. 794.011), lewd or lascivious offenses (s. 800.04), sexual performance by a child (s. 827.071), the conduct in s. 847.0135(5), and s. 847.0145, where the victim was under 16. It applies "regardless of whether adjudication has been withheld." The original rule in subsection (2) reaches Florida offenses committed on or after October 1, 2004, and subsection (3) reaches similar out-of-state offenses committed on or after May 26, 2010. Both exclude anyone removed from registration under the close-in-age statute, s. 943.04354.

The protected places, as defined

The statute does not leave the protected places to common usage. A school has the meaning in s. 1003.01, "an organization of students for instructional purposes" at the elementary to high school level. Section 775.215 expressly adds private schools, voluntary prekindergarten programs, the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind and the Florida Virtual School, and excludes "facilities dedicated exclusively to the education of adults." A child care facility has the meaning in s. 402.302: care for more than five children unrelated to the operator, for payment. That definition excludes schools, summer camps and summer day camps, vacation Bible schools and resort child care offered only to guests.

“Park” means all public and private property specifically designated as being used for recreational purposes and where children regularly congregate.— Fla. Stat. § 775.215(1)(b)

A park therefore has two requirements: a designation for recreation and children who regularly gather there. A playground is narrower: "a designated independent area in the community or neighborhood that is designated solely for children and has one or more play structures."

The 2026 change: pools, and a trigger for moving

Chapter 2026-17 added subsection (4), which lists a fifth place, the public swimming pool. The term covers pools "operated by or serving subdivisions, apartments, condominiums, mobile home parks, or townhouses," whether or not admission is charged or a gate controls entry. It excludes pools at private single-family homes, hotels, motels and RV parks, and pools whose operator bars anyone under 18. Subsection (4) applies to offenses committed on or after July 1, 2026, and to anyone already restricted under subsections (2) or (3) who changes his or her permanent residence on or after that date. For that trigger, a permanent residence is a place where the person stays "for 3 or more consecutive days" as home. The first day is not counted, and any part of a calendar day counts as a day.

Staying put, and penalties

Each subsection protects a person whose home complied when they moved in: they do not violate the law and "may not be forced to relocate" if a school, park or other listed place is later established within 1,000 feet. The penalty follows the original conviction. A violation is a third-degree felony if that offense was a first-degree felony or higher, and a first-degree misdemeanor if it was a second- or third-degree felony.

A separate rule for people on supervision

Probation and community control carry their own condition, in s. 948.30(1)(b). For covered sex offenses committed on or after October 1, 1995, where the victim was under 18, the court must bar living within 1,000 feet of a school, child care facility, park, playground "or other place where children regularly congregate, as prescribed by the court." That condition says how the distance is measured: "in a straight line from the offender's place of residence to the nearest boundary line" of the place, not by walking or driving route. Section 775.215 itself sets no measuring rule in its text. Someone on supervision can be bound by both, and the supervision condition reaches a wider age range and more places.

What the state statute does not set

Counties and cities add their own ordinances on top of the state law, with larger distances in some places. In the federal suit FAC v. Glass, the defendants' own motions describe Miami-Dade County's 2,500-foot buffer and Orlando's 1,500-foot rule. Whether a given address is lawful therefore depends on the state statute, any supervision condition, and the local code. Florida's registration and residency statutes are collected verbatim in LawLookup.

What the courts have decided

After a bench trial, the district court held that the sign mandate compels speech and fails strict scrutiny, and enjoined it statewide. On January 2, 2026 an Eighth Circuit panel (Kelly, J., with Loken and Erickson, JJ.) affirmed on the merits but vacated the statewide injunction so its scope could be reconsidered under Trump v. CASA. Rehearing was denied February 6. According to Sanderson's brief, the district court on remand narrowed the injunction to him alone on May 29, 2026, with his agreement.

The rest of § 589.426 was not challenged: on October 31 registrants must avoid Halloween-related contact with children, stay inside from 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. unless they have just cause to be elsewhere, and leave outside lights off.

The parties also tell Sanderson's own history differently. Missouri says he ignored the statute for years before police caught him in 2022. His brief says two police departments told him the Halloween rules did not apply to him because they postdated his offense, citing the Missouri Supreme Court's 2010 decision in F.R. v. St. Charles County Sheriff's Department. Missouri replies that he pleaded guilty and never challenged that conviction.

What happens next

The petition is set for the justices' October 9 conference. The Court can grant review, deny it, or carry it to a later conference; granting takes four votes. If review is denied, the Eighth Circuit's decision remains binding in federal courts in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

This piece sets out the arguments as each side made them in its filings. The Wire takes no position on which is right.

The petition and its three conditions

North Carolina registration lasts at least 30 years unless, after ten years, the registrant successfully petitions the superior court under N.C.G.S. § 14-208.12A. Subsection (a1) lets the court grant relief if three things are true: the petitioner has not been arrested for a registrable crime since completing the sentence; the relief "complies with the provisions of the federal Jacob Wetterling Act, as amended, and any other federal standards"; and the court "is otherwise satisfied that the petitioner is not a current or potential threat to public safety." Subsection (a3) adds that if the court denies the petition, "the person may again petition the court for relief" one year from the denial.

The second condition is what brings federal law in. As the opinion explains, the federal standard is SORNA's minimum registration periods in 34 U.S.C. § 20915 — 15 years for a Tier I offender, 25 for Tier II, life for Tier III — so a North Carolina judge deciding a petition often has to decide which federal tier the state conviction corresponds to.

What happened to William Lingerfelt

Lingerfelt pleaded guilty in 2003 to two counts of sexual activity by a substitute parent and registered that February. He petitioned three times. In 2017 the trial court denied the petition as premature without ruling on his tier. In 2019 it ruled him a Tier II offender — the judge handwrote "Tier 2 Offense. 25 Year Min." on the form — and denied relief. He did not appeal, although the opinion notes the order was "a final, appealable judgment." In 2023 the court denied a third petition on the same ground, and this time he appealed, arguing he was Tier I and therefore already eligible. A divided Court of Appeals held he was Tier II; the dissent there would have found him Tier I and sent the case back. He came to the Supreme Court as of right on that dissent.

After oral argument in September 2025 the court ordered supplemental briefing on a question neither side had raised: whether the 2019 tier ruling was "the law of the case or was otherwise binding" on the later petition. It reheard the case in February 2026.

What the majority held

Writing for the court, Justice Dietz drew a line between the public-safety condition and the tier condition. The refiling provision, he wrote, gives a registrant a year "in which the offender can make life changes that might address the court's concerns", so a finding that someone is a threat to public safety "is not subject to issue preclusion" — a later judge may decide differently "even on largely identical facts." A tier calculation is different: it is "a legal question with only one objectively correct answer."

If Lingerfelt believed the trial court's first ruling was an error, he was required to appeal that ruling to avoid its preclusive effect in future petitions.— State v. Lingerfelt, No. 38A25, slip op. at 8 (N.C. Aug. 14, 2026) (Dietz, J.)

The court then decided which doctrine does the binding, and the choice decided the case. Collateral estoppel governs rulings from a separate proceeding, but it is an affirmative defense that a party has to raise, and the State had not raised it against the 2023 petition — so under that doctrine the issue would have been waived. Law of the case governs rulings within the same proceeding, and the opinion describes it as "a question of law for the courts" rather than a defense a litigant asserts. The court held that successive § 14-208.12A petitions are "all part of the same underlying proceeding": they resemble post-conviction filings, the statute puts them on the criminal docket to be calendared by the district attorney, and all three of Lingerfelt's petitions carried the case number of his original criminal case.

The State had not argued law of the case in the Court of Appeals either. The majority held that did not matter, because the State was the appellee: an appellate court reviews only the arguments an appellant raises, but "must affirm lower court rulings if there is any legal ground to do so," whether or not the appellee briefed it.

What the dissent argued

Justice Riggs, joined by Justice Earls, would have held that each petition is a new action. The dissent makes four points. The statute lists its three conditions together and does not mark some as revisitable and others as settled. A one-year refiling period would make little sense for a binding tier ruling, since the gap between tier minimums is ten years or more. The legislature wrote explicit procedural bars for motions for appropriate relief in § 15A-1419 and wrote none here. And tier is not always a pure legal question: the court's own decision in State v. Moir directs a fact-specific approach to age-related tier issues.

The dissent also objected to how the issue arrived. According to the dissent, both the State and Lingerfelt agreed that the refiling provision displaces law of the case, and neither party argued the doctrine at any stage, including in the supplemental briefs the court requested — so in the dissent's view it was not preserved.

What the court did not decide

Lingerfelt's tier. The question the case came up on — whether sexual activity by a substitute parent under § 14-27.7(a) matches a federal Tier II offense — was not answered. The court modified and affirmed "without addressing the remainder" of the Court of Appeals' analysis, so the categorical-match reasoning that divided that court has neither been adopted nor rejected by the Supreme Court.

Rulings never made. The 2017 denial, which declined to decide the tier, did not bind anything. The holding reaches legal rulings actually made in a final order that went unappealed.

The public-safety finding. That stays open to fresh decision on every petition, which the majority treats as the point of the one-year refiling rule.

Mixed questions. The majority treats tier as purely legal. The dissent's point about fact-specific age determinations under Moir is not answered in the majority opinion, so how the rule applies when a tier turns on facts found at a hearing is left for a later case.

What it means in practice

For a North Carolina registrant, the first petition that produces a tier ruling is the one that counts: a legal ruling against the petitioner has to be appealed then, or it applies to every later petition in the same case. A denial on public-safety grounds can still be revisited a year later. The decision is final; the Case Law Library carries it as good law. The Wire takes no position on the rule.