State v. Norton

2019 ND 174, 930 N.W.2d 190
CourtNorth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedJune 27, 2019
Docket20180378
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 2019 ND 174 (State v. Norton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering North Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Norton, 2019 ND 174, 930 N.W.2d 190 (N.D. 2019).

Opinion

Tufte, Justice.

[¶1] Spencer Norton appeals from a judgment entered after the district court denied his motion to dismiss and accepted his conditional guilty plea to the charge of failure to register as an offender against children. We conclude N.D.C.C. § 12.1-32-15(3) imposed a statutory duty on Norton to register, and we affirm.

I

[¶2] In May 2018, while Norton was in custody on unrelated charges, the State charged him with willfully failing to register as an offender against children from June 28, 2017, through May 21, 2018. The charge against Norton was based on his February 1997 convictions in North Carolina for abduction of a child and second degree kidnapping. Norton moved to dismiss the charge, arguing the State could not prove he was required to register and the complaint was premature. Norton contended he was fifteen years old at the time of the North Carolina convictions, he was never ordered to register by a North Carolina court, and the North Carolina judge never stated a registration requirement on the record. He claimed the State must prove his sentence complied with due process by personally advising him of the registration requirement. He also contended the complaint was premature, because he had been continually incarcerated since November 7, 2017, and could not go to the Bismarck Police Department to register in person.

[¶3] The State responded that Norton was required to register under N.D.C.C. §§ 12.1-32-15(1)(a) and 12.1-32-15(3), that inmates are afforded the opportunity to register during their incarceration, and that impossibility is not a valid defense because he never tried to register and he told officers he refused to register.

[¶4] The district court denied Norton's motion to dismiss, citing N.D.C.C. § 12.1-32-15(3) for registration requirements when a court has not previously ordered an individual to register in this state. The court explained:

*192 At the hearing, the State laid out for the Court and for Norton the evidence the State anticipates it would present at trial, including three exhibits. The State contends that Norton was required to register due to his North Carolina convictions (as cited in the Complaint) being equivalent to Kidnapping, in violation of Section 12.1-18-01 of the North Dakota Century Code.
Norton does not dispute his North Carolina convictions for Abduction of a Child and Second Degree Kidnapping .... Defendant Norton argued, however, that he was never ordered to register by the court in North Carolina which means he could not be required to register in North Dakota. Norton's argument was riddled almost entirely with hearsay statements which he argued came from his out-of-state attorneys, his federal probation officer and officials in North Carolina who purportedly told him he did not have to register.
The Court finds there is no legal basis warranting dismissal of this complaint. The Court adopts the State's arguments as outlined in its [written response to the motion to dismiss] and those made at the hearing.
The Court was not persuaded by Norton's arguments in favor of dismissal. Norton's arguments, in particular his argument that he did not have an opportunity to register due to being incarcerated. The Court concluded that they are more properly brought before a jury for a factual determination.

Norton entered a conditional guilty plea to the charge, reserving his right to appeal the denial of his motion to dismiss.

II

[¶5] Norton argues the district court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the charge of failure to register as an offender against children because the State cannot prove he was required to register. He contends the North Dakota registration requirements arising out of the 1997 North Carolina convictions when he was fifteen years old are a violation of his due process rights. He argues:

that by being subjected to North Dakota registration requirements out of conviction(s) which occurred when he was 15 years of age in North Carolina, for which he was incarcerated, without being afforded a hearing in North Dakota to determine whether his due process rights, including a right to a jury trial in the underlying predicate conviction(s), and without being ordered by the North Carolina sentencing judge to register as an offender against children, is a violation of his due process rights, and that he is entitled to a reversal and remand to determine these matters by the trial court.

[¶6] The State responds the district court properly denied Norton's motion to dismiss. The State claims Norton was residing in Bismarck as early as June 28, 2017, and was notified on May 4, 2018, that he was required to register in Bismarck as an offender against children. The State claims Norton had not registered with any law enforcement agency as an offender against children as of May 17, 2018, and was subject to prosecution under N.D.C.C. § 12.1-32-15(1)(a) and (3)(c).

[¶7] In State v. Jones , 2002 ND 193 , ¶ 19, 653 N.W.2d 668 (quoting State v. Berger , 2001 ND 44 , ¶ 11, 623 N.W.2d 25 ), we described our standard of review of preliminary criminal proceedings such as a motion to dismiss:

We will not reverse a trial court's findings of fact in preliminary criminal proceedings if, after the conflicts in the testimony are resolved in favor of affirmance, there is sufficient competent evidence *193 fairly capable of supporting the findings and if the trial court's decision is not contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence.

Statutory interpretation is a question of law, fully reviewable on appeal. State v. Bearrunner , 2019 ND 29 , ¶ 5, 921 N.W.2d 894 .

[¶8] Section 12.1-32-15, N.D.C.C., describes registration requirements for offenders against children and for sexual offenders and provides, in part:

1. As used in this section:
a.

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Related

State v. Long
2020 ND 216 (North Dakota Supreme Court, 2020)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2019 ND 174, 930 N.W.2d 190, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-norton-nd-2019.