IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF KANSAS No. 123,077 STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee, v. RICHARD I. MOLER II, Appellant. SYLLABUS BY THE COURT 1. If a statute's language is ambiguous, the court may turn to canons of statutory construction, consult legislative history, or consider other background information to establish the statute's meaning. 2. When construing statutes, courts presume the Legislature does not intend to enact useless or meaningless legislation. 3. The rule of lenity is a canon of statutory construction applied when a criminal statute is ambiguous to construe the uncertain language in the accused's favor. 4. The language in K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4907(a)(12) requiring a person subject to it to register "any vehicle owned or operated by the offender, or any vehicle the offender regularly drives, either for personal use or in the course of employment" is ambiguous, so 1 application of traditional canons of statutory construction is necessary to discern its meaning. 5. In a criminal prosecution, proof the defendant drove an unregistered vehicle of unknown ownership only one time is insufficient to show a violation of K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4907(a)(12)'s mandate to register any vehicle "owned or operated by the offender, or any vehicle the offender regularly drives." Review of the judgment of the Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion filed December 30, 2021. Appeal from Sedgwick District Court; BRUCE C. BROWN, judge. Opinion filed November 10, 2022. Judgment of the Court of Appeals affirming the district court is reversed. Judgment of the district court is reversed. Kasper Schirer, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, argued the cause and was on the briefs for appellant. Lance J. Gillett, assistant district attorney, argued the cause, and Marc Bennett, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, were with him on the brief for appellee. The opinion of the court was delivered by BILES, J.: The Kansas Offender Registration Act makes it a crime for a person subject to its provisions to fail to register "any vehicle owned or operated by the offender, or any vehicle the offender regularly drives, either for personal use or in the course of employment." K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4903(a) (criminalizing registered offender's noncompliance with Act's provisions); K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4907(a)(12) (automobile registration requirement). The question here is whether that person can be convicted for not registering another person's vehicle that was driven only once. The State argues the statute covers one-time driving, but that view makes the remaining phrase "or any vehicle 2 the offender regularly drives" pointless, which is disfavored. See State v. Smith, 311 Kan. 109, 114, 456 P.3d 1004 (2020) (when construing statutes, courts "presume the legislature does not intend to enact useless or meaningless legislation"). A Court of Appeals panel divided on how to interpret the statute. State v. Moler, No. 123,077, 2021 WL 6140376 (Kan. App. 2021) (unpublished opinion). We granted review to resolve the disagreement. We hold the registration directive in K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 22-4907(a)(12) is ambiguous, so we resort to traditional canons of statutory construction to …
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