State v. Lingerfelt is a recently filed North Carolina Supreme Court decision out of McDowell County. In this matter, the Court looked at the procedure for petitioning for termination of sex offender registration. Here the Court held that when there are successive petitions to terminate registration under the sex offender statute N.C.G.S. §14-208.12A, the petitions can fall under the same underlying proceeding which would make them subject to the law of the case doctrine.
In 2003, Mr. Lingerfelt plead guilty to two counts of sexual activity by a substitute parent. As a part of his sentence, the trial court required Mr. Lingerfelt to register as a sex offender and he did so. Under North Carolina law, a person cannot petition to be removed from the sex offender registry until they meet the requirements of the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). Under SORNA, a person convicted of a Tier 1 sex offense cannot petition for removal from the registry until 15 years after the date of registration. A Tier 2 offender is required to wait 25 years before petitioning for removal from the registry. A Tier 3 offender is not eligible to petition for removal at any time.
In 2019, Mr. Lingerfelt filed a petition for removal from the sex offender registry. The trial court found that he was a Tier 2 offender and thus ineligible for removal as his petition was premature. Mr. Lingerfelt did not appeal this order. In 2023, Mr. Lingerfelt filed a second petition for removal. This petition was again denied as being premature. Mr. Lingerfelt appealed this denial and argued that he was a Tier 1 offender and not a Tier 2. Had he been deemed a Tier 1 offender, this second petition would not have been deemed premature.
The issue before Court is whether Mr. Lingerfelt’s failure to appeal the 2019 trial court order was a bar to him from contesting that he is a Tier 2 offender in subsequent petitions. The Supreme Court held that successive petitions to terminate registration are all part of the same underlying case and therefore Mr. Lingerfelt’s failure to appeal the 2019 order serves as a bar to raising the tier determination issue in subsequent petitions. The Court applies the law of the case doctrine in order to reach its conclusion.
The sex offender registration statute allows an offender to demonstrate that they have made changes in their life that merit removal from the registry. The Court found that whether or not an offender is a threat to public safety is a fact based determination and reasonable jurists could reach different conclusions on this issue at different points in time. However, the Court views an offender’s tier level as a legal question with only one objectively correct answer. Once tier level is determined, it is subject to preclusion. Because Mr. Lingerfelt did not appeal the 2019 tier level determination, he was precluded from raising it in any subsequent petitions for removal from the registry.
The dissent disagreed with this analysis. In the view of the dissent, the sex offender statute views each petition for removal from the registry as a new proceeding and prior adjudications are non-binding. This would include the tier determination from prior adjudications. Therefore, according to the dissent, the law of the case is not applicable in this matter.
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