Legislative Tracker — September 2026 Update

In People v. Smith, the Michigan Supreme Court held that the 2021 Sex Offenders Registration Act cannot constitutionally impose its regime on people whose Michigan-registerable conduct occurred before July 1, 2011.

Michigan State Police then announced that people required to register solely because of pre-July 2011 conduct must be permanently removed from both the public registry and law-enforcement database. By September 11, MSP reported that more than 20,000 people had been removed from a population of roughly 43,000 people who had been actively registered or required to register.

This is not a cosmetic change to public visibility. For the affected cohort, Michigan registration, reporting, and verification duties end altogether, including for qualifying people whose registration obligation originated in another state.

The scale matters for families as much as the doctrine does: tens of thousands of households no longer have to organize work, housing, travel, identification, and routine police reporting around a retroactively expanded registration system.

• Whether Michigan lawmakers attempt a statutory response and, if so, whether it respects the court’s retroactivity holding.
• Whether MSP and local agencies correct residual records promptly, especially for people with out-of-state convictions whose only Michigan duty arose from pre-July 2011 conduct.

In Henry v. Sheriff of Tuscaloosa County, the Eleventh Circuit applied strict scrutiny to Alabama SORCNA’s lifetime prohibition on certain registrants residing with or having overnight visits with any minor, including their own children.

The panel held that the restriction failed strict scrutiny as applied to Henry, whose registration-triggering offense was possession of child pornography. The decision did not facially invalidate the entire Alabama statute.

The practical issue is family life, not just residence paperwork. A categorical lifetime ban can separate a parent from a child inside the home even when the state has never made an individualized finding that the parent presents a contact risk to that child.

The ruling gives similarly situated families a serious constitutional argument that fundamental parent-child relationships cannot be extinguished forever through registry status alone.

• Any rehearing or Supreme Court activity and how Alabama responds to the ruling.
• How district courts apply Henry to other parents with different offense histories and factual records.

In Perry v. State, the Court of Appeals held that the version of Georgia’s removal statute governing Kenneth Perry’s pre-July 1, 2024 offense controls his petition.

Under that earlier version, a Level I / low-risk classification independently permits a court to consider removal. The appellate court did not order Perry removed; it vacated the denial and returned the case for the trial court to exercise the authority the older statute provides.

A waiting-period interpretation can turn a nominal relief process into years of additional public registration even for someone the state has already classified at its lowest risk level.

For similarly situated Georgia registrants, Perry may preserve access to individualized removal review that would otherwise have been delayed by a later statutory amendment.

• The trial court’s decision on remand and how it evaluates Perry’s Level I classification and current circumstances.
• Whether Georgia courts apply the same statutory timing rule to other pre-July 2024 petitioners.

In FDLE v. Garcia, the Fourth DCA reversed an order removing Angel Garcia from Florida’s registry and held that the version of section 943.0435 in effect when a removal petition is filed governs the proceeding.

The court also held that registry-removal proceedings are civil regulatory matters and that FDLE has standing to challenge a removal order that affects its statutory registry-maintenance duties.

For people who completed sentences under older rules, the decision blocks an argument that a more favorable historical removal procedure remains attached to their case.

That can convert legislative amendments made years later into additional years of registration, even when the person’s original conviction and sentence are long finished.

• Whether the Florida Supreme Court is asked to resolve appellate disagreement over the nature and review of registry-removal proceedings.
• How Garcia is applied to petitions filed under other historical versions of section 943.0435.

In State v. Hernandez, the Third DCA reversed a registry-removal order and held that the current version of section 943.0435 governs when relief is sought.

Hernandez argued for the 2002 version, which permitted qualifying petitions after 20 years. The court concluded that the removal procedure is civil and procedural and that he had no vested right to the older process before lawmakers lengthened and changed eligibility rules.

Garcia and Hernandez together look less like isolated cases and more like an emerging Florida appellate rule: later legislatures can reshape the path to registry removal before a person becomes eligible to use it.

For families planning around a future termination date, that means the statutory finish line may move while registration is already underway.

• Rehearing, finality, and any request for Florida Supreme Court review.
• Whether later cases reconcile or deepen disagreements among Florida districts over registry-removal procedure.

In C.L. Haigh v. Pennsylvania State Police, Commonwealth Court rejected the petitioner’s challenge and held that SORNA II Subchapter I applied where the statutory prerequisites were satisfied.

The court noted that Subchapter I separately permits a qualifying person to seek relief after 25 years of compliant registration by showing that continued registration is no longer necessary for public protection. The September disposition is nonprecedential.

The ruling does not newly create the 25-year route, but it illustrates how narrow and delayed relief can be for people whose underlying convictions predate today’s registry structure.

Because the opinion is nonprecedential, its broader legal reach is limited, but the practical burden on the individual remains substantial.

• Whether future precedential Pennsylvania decisions revisit Subchapter I retroactivity or the 25-year termination mechanism.
• How courts evaluate evidence that a long-term registrant no longer poses a public-safety threat.

In Clements v. Secretary, Department of Corrections, the Middle District of Florida again dismissed a section 2254 petition for lack of jurisdiction after an Eleventh Circuit remand for factual development.

The court held that Florida’s registration, reporting, residency, and related consequences do not place a person whose criminal sentence has expired “in custody” for federal habeas purposes. The dismissal was without prejudice and did not decide whether the challenged restrictions are constitutional on the merits.

Procedure determines whether a court can ever reach the substance of a registry challenge. Here, the ongoing restrictions may be significant in daily life, but they are not enough to satisfy habeas jurisdiction.

For registrants and families, that means constitutional challenges to an expired conviction or its registry consequences may need a different vehicle, such as a properly framed civil-rights action.

• Any appeal and whether the Eleventh Circuit further defines when registry restraints can satisfy federal custody requirements.
• Whether similar plaintiffs shift toward section 1983 or other civil-rights litigation rather than habeas.

In State v. Howard, the Court of Appeals held that the state’s sex-offender-specific probation statute applies to a defendant who received a statutory conditional discharge.

That statute requires qualifying sex offenders to serve an indeterminate period of supervised probation of at least five and no more than twenty years. The appellate court reversed a trial court ruling that had allowed early discharge outside that framework.

A conditional discharge can otherwise function as a less punitive disposition, but Howard makes the sex-offense supervision statute controlling even in that setting.

The practical result is years of continued supervision exposure, including the possibility of treatment rules, searches, technology restrictions, travel limits, and revocation risk that accompany probation.

• Any New Mexico Supreme Court review of the interaction between conditional discharge and mandatory sex-offense probation.
• How trial courts calculate and administer the five-to-twenty-year term after Howard.

In Commonwealth v. Kuykendall, the Virginia Supreme Court reinstated sex-offense probation conditions restricting internet and social-networking use without probation-officer approval.

Approved access could also require monitoring software and use of the probation officer as an accountability partner. The court distinguished Packingham v. North Carolina because Packingham involved a law applied to people who had completed their sentences, while Kuykendall remained on probation with a suspended sentence.

Internet access now touches employment, healthcare, banking, education, family communication, transportation, government services, and basic reentry. Broad supervision controls can therefore reach far beyond social media.

The decision gives Virginia courts significant room to condition access during probation when the restrictions are tied to rehabilitation and public safety.

• How Virginia trial courts tailor internet conditions after Kuykendall and whether they require offense-specific findings.
• Whether future cases test denials of access needed for work, education, telehealth, or family communication.

In United States v. Tampico, the Fifth Circuit upheld six months of home detention and GPS location monitoring, with continuation if sex-offender treatment remained incomplete.

The court rejected the argument that these restrictions improperly extended punishment beyond the statutory imprisonment maximum because they were imposed by modifying an existing term of supervised release rather than adding imprisonment after revocation.

Home detention and continuous GPS can sharply limit employment, caregiving, medical appointments, family activities, and ordinary movement even when they are formally classified as supervision rather than incarceration.

Tying those restrictions to treatment completion can also make their duration depend on program availability, treatment decisions, and a person’s ability to satisfy requirements outside the courtroom.

• How Fifth Circuit district courts use Tampico when modifying supervision for treatment noncompletion.
• Whether future cases challenge treatment-linked restrictions where delay is caused by program capacity rather than the supervisee’s conduct.

In State v. Contreras, the Kansas Supreme Court reinstated lifetime postrelease supervision on qualifying sexually violent offense counts.

The court agreed that adulthood at the time of the offense is an Apprendi fact because it increases punishment, but held that Contreras’s knowing and voluntary general jury-trial waiver and admission adequately established the relevant age; a second, separately itemized waiver was not required.

The immediate consequence is lifetime state control after imprisonment for the qualifying counts, with all of the compliance, revocation, employment, travel, and family implications that indefinite supervision can carry.

The procedural holding also reduces one route for challenging lifetime supervision where age was admitted through the plea process.

• Whether federal constitutional challenges to Kansas lifetime postrelease supervision continue on other grounds.
• Any legislative movement toward periodic individualized review or termination standards.

AB 1816, Chapter 833, allows a probation department to petition for additional supervision for a person required to register.

If the court finds that probation has not been successfully completed and more time is necessary to complete specified programming, probation may be extended for up to one additional year.

An extra year of probation can mean another year of searches, travel approval, technology controls, treatment mandates, employment scrutiny, and revocation exposure.

The most important implementation question is causation: people should not be kept under supervision longer simply because programming was unavailable, delayed, or administratively difficult to complete.

• How probation departments document the need for an extension and whether courts distinguish unwillingness from lack of program access.
• Whether implementation guidance addresses waitlists, disability accommodations, language access, cost, and other barriers outside the probationer’s control.

AB 767, Chapter 266, adds day-care centers to the existing one-quarter-mile placement restriction that applies to certain sexually violent predator conditional-release placements.

The final law also includes an important limiting rule: a day-care center or private school established after an existing placement does not retroactively make that placement unlawful.

Expanding exclusion geography can make already difficult conditional-release housing searches even harder, especially in communities where day-care facilities are dispersed through residential areas.

The grandfathering rule is meaningful because it prevents a lawfully established placement from becoming illegal solely because a new child-serving facility later opens nearby.

• How counties and courts measure the quarter-mile distance and identify qualifying day-care centers.
• Whether placement searches become longer or more geographically concentrated after the new restriction takes effect.

AB 2691, Chapter 480, expands California’s existing disqualification from state or local elective office to specified felony convictions involving sexual assault or human trafficking.

For the sexual-assault category, the chaptered definition reaches offenses requiring registration under Penal Code section 290(d)(3), making the registration framework itself part of the trigger for an additional civic exclusion.

The law does more than punish the original offense. It uses a registry classification to determine who may be categorically barred from holding elected office after the criminal case.

That matters because registry status increasingly functions as a gateway to collateral consequences far beyond the stated purpose of keeping an address database.

• Implementation of the new disqualification and any legal challenges involving restoration of civil rights.
• Whether California or other states extend registration classifications into additional occupational or civic eligibility rules.

The House passed H.R. 8775, the Ending Predator Access to Union Power Act, and sent it to the Senate.

The bill would amend section 504(a) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act to add a “sex offense against a minor” to offenses triggering disqualification from specified labor-organization offices, union employment and advisory roles, and certain employer labor-relations positions. The existing framework generally runs for 13 years after conviction or release.

Employment stability is one of the strongest foundations for successful reentry, treatment continuity, housing, and family support. A categorical federal job bar removes opportunities based on conviction category rather than the demands of a particular position or present risk.

The bill had passed only the House by September 30, so it had not yet become law.

• Whether the Senate takes up H.R. 8775, adds a companion measure, or amends the covered offenses or disqualification period.
• Whether lawmakers consider individualized waiver, rehabilitation, or job-duty-based exceptions.

A11703 would require the Mental Hygiene commissioner to notify the chief executive of the municipality and the local school superintendent at least ten calendar days before a “sex offender” is transferred to a community program or residence.

The proposal has a Senate companion, S637. The bill itself requires advance notice to government and school-system officials; it does not, by its own terms, create a general public-notification mandate.

Placement can already be one of the hardest parts of reentry. Advance institutional notification can increase political pressure, stigma, and placement instability even when the person has been approved for a structured community program.

The distinction between government notice and public disclosure matters, but information passed through multiple local offices can still shape whether a placement survives community opposition.

• Committee action on A11703 and S637 and whether either chamber narrows who receives notice or what information may be disclosed.
• Any amendments adding confidentiality safeguards, individualized findings, or limits on secondary public dissemination.

SB 1342, Chapter 702, expands aspects of California criminal record relief, including additional automatic handling of qualifying dismissed felony arrests and related administrative changes.

But the eligibility rules for automatic conviction relief continue to require that the person not be required to register under California’s Sex Offender Registration Act.

Record relief can improve employment, housing, licensing, and reintegration. Leaving registrants categorically outside automatic relief means the people facing some of the most durable public collateral consequences remain excluded from a major second-chance reform.

Nothing in SB 1342 newly makes a registrant’s position worse; the significance is that California expanded relief around them without removing the existing exclusion.

• Future California Clean Slate legislation that revisits the registration exclusion or creates individualized relief.
• Whether advocates use evidence on desistance, time offense-free, employment, and family stability to challenge categorical exclusion from record relief.

A September procurement and grant record for the SFY25 Adam Walsh Grant describes a $135,000 project beginning in September 2026 to modernize Massachusetts’s roughly decade-old public registry website.

The project concerns the public system that displays qualifying Level 2 and Level 3 information and is intended in part to address issues identified through federal SORNA implementation review.

This is infrastructure rather than a new statutory registration duty, so it should not be overstated as a new punishment or expansion by itself.

Website design still matters: searchability, data presentation, labels, accuracy, accessibility, and correction procedures can affect employment, housing, family privacy, and public stigma even when the underlying disclosure rules stay the same.

• Project specifications and any SORB guidance describing what will change on the public site.
• Whether modernization adds clearer correction mechanisms, contextual information, accessibility features, or broader public search functions.

The California Sex Offender Management Board reports page posted two September drafts: “Strengthening California’s Public Safety Through Access to Evidence-Based Sexual Offense Treatment During Incarceration” and “Sexually Violent Predator Project: Executive Summary.”

CASOMB expressly states that documents in this section are drafts that have not been considered, adopted, or voted upon, and it provides a Public Comment Card for reader feedback.

Treatment access during incarceration can shape release readiness, continuity of care, supervision outcomes, and public safety. Policy written before release can determine whether people have a realistic chance to complete evidence-based programming when it matters most.

Because these documents are still drafts, this is one of the rare tracker items where readers can engage before a policy position hardens into a final board product.

• Revisions to either draft after public comment and whether CASOMB formally adopts, rejects, or materially changes the recommendations.
• Upcoming CASOMB meetings or subcommittee work that moves either draft toward a final board vote.