NC: North Carolina Supreme Court Rules Procedural Mistake Can Keep You On The Registry

The North Carolina Supreme Court has issued a disappointing decision earlier this month concerning the ability of people on the sex offender registry to seek removal. In State v. Lingerfelt (August 14, 2026), the Court held that a person who fails to appeal an earlier determination of their federal SORNA tier cannot later challenge that determination in a subsequent petition for removal.

The petitioner pleaded guilty in 2003 to two counts of sexual activity by a substitute parent and was required to register. North Carolina law permits an individual to petition for termination of registration, subject to federal SORNA requirements. In 2019, a trial court determined that Lingerfelt was a Tier II offender, meaning he would have to remain registered for at least 25 years. Lingerfelt did not appeal that decision. When he filed another petition in 2023, he argued that he had actually been improperly classified as Tier II and should be treated as Tier I, which would have allowed him to seek removal sooner.

The Supreme Court ultimately did not decide whether Lingerfelt was correctly classified as Tier I or Tier II. Instead, it held that his failure to appeal the 2019 decision was fatal to his later challenge. The Court concluded that successive petitions to terminate registration are part of the same underlying case and that the doctrine known as “law of the case” prevented Lingerfelt from relitigating the tier determination.

There is, however, a significant dissent. Two dissenting justices argued that the majority’s interpretation conflicts with the North Carolina statute expressly allowing a person to file another petition one year after a denial. The dissent reasoned that each petition should be treated as a new proceeding and that the statute does not say that legal determinations made in an earlier petition automatically bind future petitions.

The dissent also raises an important practical point: the statute allows a person to return to court every year, while the difference between SORNA tiers can mean 10 years or more of additional registration. If a prior tier determination is permanently binding, the dissent questioned why the legislature would expressly permit annual petitions without creating an explicit bar preventing someone from seeking relief before the previously determined eligibility date.

For registry reform advocates, Lingerfelt illustrates how procedural rules can have enormous consequences for people attempting to petition for removal from the registry. The Court’s decision did not determine that Lingerfelt was actually a Tier II offender. It determined that he had lost the opportunity to challenge that determination because he did not appeal the earlier ruling.

State v. Lingerfelt