In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
No. 09-3117
U NITED STATES OF A MERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
W ALTER S. SANDERS,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Wisconsin.
No. 09 CR 20—Barbara B. Crabb, Judge.
A RGUED F EBRUARY 18, 2010—D ECIDED S EPTEMBER 16, 2010
Before E ASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, and K ANNE and
R OVNER, Circuit Judges.
R OVNER, Circuit Judge. In 2008, Walter S. Sanders,
having previously been convicted of a sex offense in
Wisconsin, relocated to Mississippi without notifying
the sex offender registry in Wisconsin or registering as
a sex offender in Mississippi. Following his arrest in
2009, he was charged with violating the Sex Offender Reg-
istration and Notification Act (“SORNA”) by traveling
2 No. 09-3117
in interstate commerce without updating his sex of-
fender registration. See 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a); 42 U.S.C.
§ 16913. He pleaded guilty to that charge while re-
serving his right to challenge the district court’s denial
of his motion to dismiss the indictment. On appeal,
Sanders has renewed his contention that SORNA’s reg-
istration requirement, § 16913, exceeds congressional au-
thority under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution,
U.S. C ONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 3. On the basis of our recent
decision in United States v. Vasquez, 611 F.3d 325 (7th Cir.
2010), we affirm Sanders’ conviction.
In October 2000, Sanders was convicted of second-
degree sexual assault involving the use of force in Dane
County, Wisconsin. Given the nature of the offense, he
incurred a lifelong duty to register as a sex offender
in Wisconsin regardless of whether he remained in the
State. See Wis. Stat. 301.45. He was given a sex offender
registration form advising him of this obligation; his
signature on the form constituted an acknowledgment
that he had read it. Sanders was initially sentenced to
three years of probation conditioned on serving one year
in jail, but in 2002 his probation was revoked and he
was sentenced to a prison term of 66 months. He was
released from prison in June 2004 and registered as a
sex offender as required by Wisconsin statute.
Sanders subsequently relocated to Mississippi to be
near his mother. At that time, he notified the Wisconsin
authorities of his intent to leave the state, and upon
arrival in Mississippi he registered as a sex offender
there as well. In July 2006, he was stabbed repeatedly
No. 09-3117 3
during an altercation. As a result of an injury to his
colon, he underwent a temporary colostomy. Doctors
subsequently advised Sanders that his colon could
be repaired and the colostomy reversed, but Sanders
did not have the resources to pay for the procedure at
that time.
Sanders returned to Wisconsin in February 2007 after
his father, who lived in Wisconsin, offered to help
pay for his surgery. Sanders notified Wisconsin’s sex
offender registry of his return. Sanders consulted on
multiple occasions with physicians at the University
of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison regarding persistent
problems resulting from his colostomy; they agreed
that his colostomy should be reversed. As it turned out,
however, the financial assistance that his father had
promised him did not materialize. On the advice
of his doctors in Madison, Sanders opted to return to
Mississippi, where he was eligible for medical care subsi-
dized by a state fund for the victims of crime.
Sanders returned to Mississippi early in January 2008,
without the permission of the probation officer who was
supervising Sanders in a matter unrelated to his 2000
sexual assault conviction. Sanders underwent surgery
in Mississippi on March 3, 2008 and was discharged
from the hospital several weeks later. The following
August, he signed a lease on an apartment in Green-
ville, Mississippi. But Sanders did not update his sex
offender registration in Wisconsin, nor did he re-register
as a sex offender in Mississippi.
An arrest warrant was eventually issued for Sanders
in Wisconsin when he never responded to a registered
4 No. 09-3117
letter that was sent in October 2007 to his last known
Wisconsin address for purposes of updating his sex
offender registration. He was tracked down in Green-
ville in January 2009 and arrested.
SORNA, enacted as part of the Adam Walsh Child
Protection and Safety Act of 2006, P.L. No. 109-248, 120
Stat. 587 (Jul. 27, 2006), imposes a federal obligation on
anyone convicted of a sex offense (a crime that has an
element involving a sexual act or sexual contact with
another) to register in each jurisdiction in which he
resides, works, or attends school by providing his
name, social security number, home and work addresses,
and vehicle description(s), and to keep his registration
current. 42 U.S.C. § 16913; see also §§ 16911(1) (defining
“sex offender”); 16911(5)(A)(i) (defining “sex offense”);
§ 16914 (listing information sex offender must provide).
As relevant here, SORNA also makes it a federal offense
for an offender to ignore his duty to register or to up-
date his registration when he travels in interstate com-
merce:
Whoever—
(1) is required to register under the Sex Offender
Registration and Notification Act;
(2) . . . (B) travels in interstate or foreign com-
merce, . . . ; and
(3) knowingly fails to register or update a regis-
tration as required by the Sex Offender Registra-
tion and Notification Act;
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not
more than 10 years or both.
No. 09-3117 5
18 U.S.C. § 2250(a). One convicted of federal sex offenses
is liable for his knowing failure to register or update his
registration regardless of whether he travels in interstate
or foreign commerce. See § 2250(a)(2)(A).
In the wake of Sanders’ arrest, a federal grand jury
indicted him for violating SORNA by knowingly failing
to update his registration when he traveled in inter-
state commerce from Wisconsin to Mississippi. Sanders
moved to dismiss the indictment arguing, among other
things, that Congress exceeded its authority under the
Commerce Clause by imposing a nationwide registra-
tion requirement on all those convicted of sex offenses,
including those convicted of state rather than federal
offenses. A magistrate judge recommended that the
motion be denied, and the district judge accepted that
recommendation. Sanders entered a conditional plea
of guilty, reserving his right to contend on appeal
that the indictment should have been dismissed. The
district court ordered Sanders to serve a prison term of
14 months (a sentence below the advisory Guidelines
range of 21 to 27 months), to be followed by a two-year
term of supervised release.
On appeal, Sanders renews his Commerce Clause
challenge to SORNA. Sanders’ argument is focused on
the obligation to register imposed by section 16913. The
failure to register is a prerequisite to a conviction under
section 2250, and yet, in Sanders’ view, the registration
requirement imposed by SORNA was beyond the power
of Congress to enact, as it applies even to those indi-
viduals convicted of local offenses having no connection
to interstate or foreign commerce.
6 No. 09-3117
In United States v. Vasquez, 611 F.3d at 329-31, we joined
other circuits in rejecting this very argument. See id. at
330 (citing United States v. Guzman, 591 F.3d 83 (2d Cir.),
cert. denied, 130 S. Ct. 3487 (2010); United States v. Whaley,
577 F.3d 254 (5th Cir. 2009); United States v. Howell, 552
F.3d 709 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 2812 (2009);
United States v. Ambert, 561 F.3d 1202 (11th Cir. 2009)).
Vasquez, like Sanders, contended that because “Con-
gress does not have the power to impose registration re-
quirements on individual citizens convicted of purely
intrastate offenses,” the sweeping registration require-
ment imposed by section 16913 exceeds Congress’ author-
ity under the Commerce Clause. Id. at 329. However, we
emphasized that it is section 2250 which attaches
criminal penalties to the failure to comply with section
16913, and only where an individual either has been
convicted of a federal sex offense or has traveled
in interstate commerce does he become liable for the
failure to register. Id. at 330; see also Whaley, 577 F.3d at 260
(“neither § 16913 nor any other provision of SORNA
creates any federal penalty for failing to register while
remaining within a state: a sex offender who does not
travel in interstate commerce may ignore SORNA’s reg-
istration requirements without fear of federal criminal
consequences”); Ambert, 561 F.3d at 1212 (“Notably,
§ 16913 does not contain a federal enforcement provi-
sion against individuals who fail to register locally.”);
Howell, 552 F.3d at 716 (“A wholly intrastate offender
would never be reached by federal enforcement power.”).
Those persons who have been convicted of state sex
offenses do not become liable for the failure to register
No. 09-3117 7
unless they cross state lines, thereby becoming “instru-
mentalities” of interstate commerce making use of the
interstate transportation routes which are the “chan-
nels” of such commerce. Vasquez, 611 F.3d at 330 (citing
Ambert, 561 F.3d at 1210-11); see also United States v. Dixon,
551 F.3d 578, 583 (7th Cir. 2008) (summarily rejecting
defendant’s assertion “that the movement of a person as
distinct from a thing across state lines is not ‘commerce’
within the meaning of the Constitution’s commerce
clause”), rev’d on other grounds by Carr v. United States, 130
S. Ct. 2229 (2010); United States v. Shenandoah, 595 F.3d 151,
161 & n.5 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 130 S. Ct. 3433 (2010) (sus-
taining § 2250 against Commerce Clause challenge &
coll. cases). SORNA thus defines the crime of failing
to register in such a way that “the use of the channels
and instrumentalities of interstate commerce is neces-
sarily part of the commission of the targeted offense.”
Vasquez, 611 F.3d at 330 (citing Ambert, 561 F.3d at 1211). At
the same time, the sequential reading of section 2250’s
three elements that the Supreme Court adopted in Carr,
130 S. Ct. at 2235—conviction of a sex offense, followed by
interstate travel, followed by the failure to register as
required by SORNA, “ ‘helps to assure a nexus between
a defendant’s interstate travel and his failure to register
as a sex offender.’ ” Vasquez, 611 F.3d at 330 (quoting Carr,
130 S. Ct. at 2235).
Carr recognizes that section 2250 cannot be isolated
from the other provisions of SORNA; “it is embedded in
a broader statutory scheme enacted to address the de-
ficiencies in prior law that had enabled sex offenders to
slip through the cracks.” 130 S. Ct. at 2240. Conversely,
8 No. 09-3117
section 16913 cannot be divorced from section 2250
in evaluating whether the Commerce Clause gives Con-
gress the authority to require anyone convicted of a sex
offense to register. Imposing a duty to register as a
matter of federal law would do little to solve the prob-
lem of sex offenders slipping through the cracks absent
the enforcement mechanism supplied by section 2250.
Interstate travel by a sex offender is not merely a juris-
dictional hook but a critical part of the problem that
Congress was attempting to solve, for whenever sex
offenders cross state lines they tend to evade the
ability of any individual state to track them and
thereby “threaten the efficacy of the statutory scheme . . . .”
Id. at 2239; see also id. at 2238 (it was reasonable for Con-
gress to give States primary responsibility to supervise
and ensure compliance among state sex offenders and
subject such offenders to federal criminal liability only
when “they use the channels of interstate commerce
in evading a State’s reach”); id. at 2240 (act of travel by
sex offender is not merely a jurisdictional predicate but
is “the very conduct at which Congress took aim”); id. at
2241 (section 2250 “subject[s] to federal prosecution
sex offenders who elude SORNA’s registration require-
ments by traveling in interstate commerce”).
In short, the obligation to register imposed by section
16913 and the criminal penalties imposed by section 2250
on those who cross state lines without complying
with their registration obligations are inextricably inter-
twined, as this court and others have recognized. Vasquez,
611 F.3d at 330; see also Guzman, 591 F.3d at 90; Whaley,
577 F.3d at 259-60; Ambert, 561 F.3d at 1212; Howell, 552
No. 09-3117 9
F.3d at 716-17. Section 2250, which gives teeth section
16913’s registration requirement, ensures that state sex
offenders are penalized for the failure to register only
when they move in interstate commerce. To the extent
that section 16913 requires a state sex offender to
register irrespective of whether he engages in interstate
travel, it may be seen under the Necessary and Proper
Clause, U.S. C ONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 18, as “an appropriate
aid” (Vasquez, 611 F.3d at 330) to the tracking of those
offenders who do cross state lines and thereby bring
themselves within the reach of Congress’ authority
under the Commerce Clause. See Vasquez, 611 F.3d at 330-
31 (quoting Howell, 552 F.3d at 715); see also Guzman,
591 F.3d at 91; Ambert, 561 F.3d at 1211-12; Whaley, 557
F.3d at 260-61.
For all of these reasons, we A FFIRM Sanders’ conviction.
9-16-10