Please join ACSOL Executive Director and civil rights attorney Janice Bellucci as well as ACSOL President and criminal defense attorney Chance Oberstein for our next meeting. The meeting will be held on Saturday, September 17, online on Zoom beginning at 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1:00 PM Eastern, and will last at least two hours. You can use the Zoom app or call in using a Zoom phone number.
There is no registration needed for this meeting. You can use the Zoom app to see Janice and Chance and choose to show or hide yourself, or you can use the Zoom phone number to call in to the meeting.
This meeting will be recorded and then posted here as an audio recording within a couple of days. A link to the recording will be at the top of our pages.
Discussion topics will include:
- meet a board member
- status update regarding lawsuit challenging SORNA regulations
- status update regarding lawsuit challenging denial of military retirees access to military bases
- status update regarding lawsuit challenging exclusion of felony registrants from serving as jurors
- the California Tiered Registry (now effective)
- challenges to California Tiered Registry Law
- domestic and overseas travel
- other current topics and pending legal action throughout the nation.
Please Show Up, Stand Up and Speak Up!
To join our Zoom meeting with your Zoom app, click on this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83275896264
Or you can call in to one of the phone numbers below, then specify: Meeting ID: 832 7589 6264 Dial by your location: +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) Find your local number from around the world: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcQ8fXsCtM
You can set up your one tap mobile using these keystrokes (these are examples; choose the phone number above that you want): +16699006833,,83275896264# US (San Jose) +12532158782,,83275896264# US (Tacoma)
A couple of travel clarifications …
Dear Janice and Chance:
My name is Bruce a.k.a. Atwo Zee, Registered Traveler. I am writing to offer clarifications to a couple of things you have been saying about domestic travel on your monthly ACSOL zoom meetings, most recently on August 20, 2022.
My first clarification has to do with what you sometimes call the “coffee rule,” the idea that if a state has a maximum number of consecutive days you can be in-state before triggering an obligation to register, you can leave the state one day early, buy a cup of coffee (being sure to keep the date & time stamped receipt), then return to re-start the time clock.
In concept this is true, but with one very important clarification. Most states SOR laws specify consecutive days (as opposed to hours) a registrant can be in the state, AND most states count any PARTIAL DAY as a day. Some states (Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana … ) have this fact spelled out in their statutes. Other states (Florida, Georgia …) do this by SOR office policy.
Either way, what this means for a registered traveler is that you can’t just leave the state for coffee, or even stay out of state over one night, because if you do so both days (i.e. the day you leave and the following day when you return) will be counted against you as consecutive partial days. Instead you will need to stay out of state for one full day and two nights, all supported by date and time stamped receipts, in order to return to the state in question and re-start the clock.
Fortunately for Californians wanting to visit Las Vegas, Nevada’s SOR statute specifies not two days but 48 hours (Tennessee is another example of this, Rhode Island is 24 hours). In this situation the coffee rule really works as long as you stay out of state for at least one hour and support that with time stamped receipts.
My other clarification has to do with the oft-asked question, once I get myself off the registry in my state of offense (using California as an example), am I free to travel to another state without tripping over their registry laws? Chance, on August 20 you correctly urged great caution on this point.
My clarification is this: MOST state & territorial SOR laws tie your obligation to register NOT to whether your home state registry status, but to if you have EVER been convicted of a registrable offense in any state or territory. For any of that majority of states you will still need to keep track of your days and not overstay their grace period, even after you get yourself off your home state’s registry. Only eight states have SOR laws that specifically say that if you are off the registry in your state of offense you don’t have to register with them.
In case you’re wondering, those eight states are: Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Maine, Missouri, Ohio, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.
For more information on these and other domestic travel matters, including an undated and completely re-researched version of your ACSOL 50 state visitor guide chart, feel free to visit my travel blog site.
Hi Bruce,
You are an excellent writer and storyteller. There are a few who post on ACSOL that are in the same category but not many myself included.
The updated compendium of shit rules for our interstate travel enjoyment is very valuable. I had often wished the one posted by ACSOL was updated but it, as you know, is a lot of detailed work. ACSOL is a great organization and has a brilliant and dedicated leadership. ACSOL doesn’t appear to have much money and have daily fires to put out. Thus I was not expecting them to update the file and then you come along!
I am seventy years old and would love to travel the country. I was hopeful since my registration was terminated by petition and I had a release of penalties and disabilities (1203.4) that I would not run into any trouble. Then came the new SORNA regs and pretty much ended the “Peaceful Easy Feeling”. I had been registered for over thirty years so I got to witness the adding on of obligations and restrictions. Never get used to it.
I have been reading some of your prison entries. Well done. Gives me insight into a subject that I don’t really want to know about!
Thank you.
ANOG (another old guy)
Travel clarifications Part 2
Dear Janice and Chance:
My name is Bruce a.k.a. Atwo Zee, Registered Traveler. I am writing again to offer clarifications to a couple of things you have been saying about domestic travel on your monthly ACSOL zoom meetings, most recently on September 17, 2022.
Janice, when you give the introductory presentation at each monthly zoom meeting you usually talk about which states have the shortest and longest time periods available to visitors without triggering an obligation to register. You correctly point out that the objective of every registered traveler should be to never stay in any state long enough to be required to register because it complicates one’s life enough to be registered at all, why would you want to find yourself registered in multiple states?
I completely agree with that logic. However, you have often mentioned Hawaii as a state having one of, if not the longest, visitor grace periods at 10 consecutive days or 30 per calendar year. About that you are mistaken. Actually several states have this 10 consecutive day standard, including Montana, North Dakota (where I traveled earlier this month), Washington, Wisconsin, New York, Vermont and South Carolina. Several more states have an even longer 14 or 15 day grace period, including Colorado, Minnesota, Kentucky, West Virginia and North Carolina.
Of all these states, some also impose an overall limit of 30 cumulative days per calendar year, but others do not.
During the September 17 zoom call a man raised his hand to say he had spoken to the Oregon SOR office and they said they had no specific time period, just don’t make your visit permanent. I am here to tell you that’s what the Oregon SOR office told me too – on two separate occasions. That’s because Oregon’s registry law is silent on the subject of visitors and unlike some other states the Oregon SOR office has chosen not to impose a limit by fiat.
Oregon is not the only state completely lacking a visitor time limit. Pennsylvania, for all that it has been in the news lately for having its entire registry found unconstitutional, never had any limit either. I even visited a PA registration office to talk to an officer in person to confirm this, which he did. However, they do define “residence” as being a place where a person is domiciled for more than 30 days per calendar year, so there’s that. U.S. territories having no specific time limit include the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and American Samoa.
Of the remaining 48 states and two territories with consecutive day time limits, the longest is 30 days. This generous time limit applies in Virginia, Guam and the US Virgin Islands. By the way, none of these three places has a limit per year, so you can leave and return to re-start the clock if you need to or want to.
For more information on these and other domestic travel matters, including an updated and completely re-researched version of your ACSOL 50 state visitor guide chart, feel free to visit my travel blog site.