United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 18-1519 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. ANTHONY SEWARD, Defendant, Appellant. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. Denise J. Casper, U.S. District Judge] Before Barron, Stahl, and Lipez, Circuit Judges. Inga L. Parsons, with whom Law Offices of Inga L. Parsons was on brief, for appellant. Kelly Begg Lawrence, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Andrew E. Lelling, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee. July 28, 2020 STAHL, Circuit Judge. This appeal arises out of an order denying a motion to dismiss filed by Defendant-Appellant Anthony Seward, a state sex offender who moved from Massachusetts to New York and failed to update his registration as required by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act ("SORNA"), 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a). Seward was indicted in Massachusetts for his failure to register. He moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that venue in Massachusetts was improper, relying principally on the Supreme Court's decision in Nichols v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1113 (2016). Seward argued that under Nichols, he had committed no crime in Massachusetts because his failure to register occurred entirely in New York. The district court denied Seward's motion to dismiss, concluding that Nichols did not address the question of venue. The court further found interstate travel to be a necessary element of a § 2250 offense and, as such, determined that venue was proper in Massachusetts, where Seward's interstate travel began. After careful review, we affirm. We thus join the all but one of our sister circuits who have reached this issue to conclude that venue for a § 2250 prosecution is proper in the departure jurisdiction. I. Facts and Procedural Background A. SORNA SORNA was enacted by Congress in part to "make more uniform what had remained 'a patchwork of federal and . . . state - 2 - registration systems,' with 'loopholes and deficiencies' that had resulted in . . . sex offenders becoming 'missing' or 'lost.'" Nichols, 136 S. Ct. at 1119 (quoting United States v. Kebodeaux, 570 U.S. 387, 399 (2013)). As such, SORNA requires that every "sex offender shall register, and keep the registration current, in each jurisdiction where the offender resides, where the offender is an employee, and where the offender is a student." 34 U.S.C. § 20913(a). It further requires that an offender "shall, not later than 3 business days after each change of name, residence, employment, or student status, appear in person in at least 1 jurisdiction involved . . . and inform that jurisdiction" of the change. Id. § 20913(c). Section 2250(a) of SORNA makes failing to register a crime punishable by a fine or a prison term of up to 10 years, or both. 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a). Under the statute, whoever "(1) is required to register under [SORNA]; (2)(A) is a sex offender as defined for the purposes of [SORNA] by reason of a conviction under Federal law . ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals