FAC Weekly Update 2025-12-30-When Compliance is Impossible

Weekly update for December 30, 2025. This is recording number 346

Dear Members and Advocates,

This week, as we close out 2025, we want to draw attention to a situation that highlights a fundamental flaw in Florida’s registration scheme: what happens when the law requires compliance, but the government makes compliance impossible. Here’s the hypothetical scenario… During the winter holidays, a person required to register as a sex offender travels to Florida to spend time with family. He or she establishes a temporary residence (of three or more days) which triggers a duty to register within 48 hours. Acting in good faith, the individual goes down to the registration office to comply—only to find a sign on the door stating the office was closed for the holidays.

A couple days ago, a member in Polk County shared a picture he took of the closed door at the registration office. On the door was a sign saying the office was closed Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for Christmas. Those closures ran directly into Saturday and Sunday, when the office is ordinarily closed, creating a continuous 132-hour period during which registration was impossible. He could have camped outside the registration office for 48 hours straight – two periods of 48 hours, actually –  and there would still be no opportunity to register nor anyone there to register him. Whose fault is that? Unfortunately, under the current statute, it’s his fault. That’s because Florida’s registration statutes say nothing of the situation.

The registration statutes also say nothing of knowledge. We recently had an actual situation where a couple dozen people in Highlands County were arrested for failure to register their mobile or “manufactured homes”. These were not RVs or travel trailers, we’re talking “double-wides” that are permanently affixed to the ground for decades – something you’d never see driving down the road. It’s not like they didn’t register them as their permanent residences, but they didn’t also register them as vehicles. Something most people with common sense would never know or think you had to do. But they were arrested nevertheless. Many of our members wrote in to ask about that one and the truth is we didn’t know. We asked among the network of attorneys we are in touch with and they didn’t know either. FAC even wrote to the FDLE for a declaratory opinion and never heard back.

How are you supposed to comply with a law you don’t know exists or is so vague and random that legal experts don’t know the answer and the FDLE refuses to tell you? How are you supposed to comply with a law that mandates IN PERSON reporting within 48 hours, when the place you must report to within 48 hours is closed for 132 hours? Suddenly all these “within 48 hour” triggers become traps!

As the Florida Supreme Court noted in State v. Giorgetti, “the sexual offender registration statutes provide no explicit guidance as to whether the Legislature intended there to be a knowledge requirement for proving a violation of the statute” and the “statutory provisions dealing with the sexual offender registration requirements simply contain no express direction” for dealing with these scenarios. Unfortunately, these scenarios are not unusual. They are quite common. The holidays bring a surge of travel to Florida, and Florida law contains numerous “within 48 hours” triggers. When those rigid deadlines collide with extended government closures, people are placed in an impossible position.

So, is impossibility a defense? Florida appellate courts have recognized – albeit narrowly – that a person cannot be convicted for failure to register when compliance was prevented by government action. In Barnes v. State the First District held that it was error to deny a jury instruction where the defendant presented evidence that he attempted to comply but was misinformed or otherwise prevented from timely registering. Also, the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Lambert v. California stands for the proposition that punishing a person for passive noncompliance without fair notice or a meaningful opportunity to comply violates due process. So when a registration office is closed for days at a time or one county’s interpretation of the law differs from the reasonable interpretation by other counties, the opportunity to comply with that law is illusory.

But here is the harsh reality. Even when impossibility is a viable defense and even when a case is ultimately dismissed, the damage is often already done. Under section 943.0435(11), Florida Statutes, a person is permanently barred from petitioning for removal from the registry if they have ever been arrested for a registration offense. That lifetime consequence applies even if charges are dropped, the case is dismissed, or the person is acquitted. A locked door, a holiday closure, complete lack of knowledge over one detective’s interpretation of a requirement can still result in an arrest that forever forecloses any chance of removal. And when we ask the FDLE for guidance on manufactured homes, internet identifiers or what to do when our registration offices are closed… they ignore us!

A system that demands perfect compliance from us while simultaneously allowing for situations where it is impossible to comply is neither rational nor just. It is why, as we enter 2026, we must intensify the fight to reform registration laws that are not merely harsh in theory, but devastating in practice. A system that criminalizes people for failing to do what the government itself makes impossible—and then imposes permanent, lifelong consequences based solely on arrest—is fundamentally unjust and incompatible with due process.

Too often, critics misunderstand FAC’s mission. This work is not about excusing noncompliance any more than it is about defending sexual misconduct (which we certainly do not do). It is about defending the Constitution. It is about insisting that laws be rational, effective, enforceable, and fair—and that no one be punished because the government locked the door in someone’s face and then blamed the person standing outside.

In 2026 we intend to double down on that mission by advancing strategic litigation, pursuing legislative reform, and expanding education efforts aimed squarely at exposing these unconstitutional, impossible and ineffective schemes, and putting and end to the injustices that happen to us every day.

FAC is a community that refuses to accept injustice as inevitable! So have a safe and happy New Years, and let’s make 2026 a year of continued meaningful progress!

Sincerely,

The Florida Action Committee