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The Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that a man convicted of a sex offense in Illinois is not required to register for life as sex offender in Indiana based solely on a one-week vacation he took to Florida.
The ruling issued June 19 reverses lower court decisions and narrows how the state can apply lifetime sex offender registration requirements.
The case centers on Gage Peters, who was convicted of criminal sexual abuse in Illinois in 2013 and was required to register as a sex offender there for 10 years.
Peters later moved to Indiana and complied with registration laws, but the Indiana Department of Correction and Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office informed him in 2023 that his registration requirement would now be for life—citing Florida law that imposes lifetime registration for anyone who spends more than three days in the state.
Attorneys for Peters did not immediately respond to The Indiana Lawyer’s request for comment. Adam Willfond, assistant county attorney for Hamilton County, declined to comment on the court’s decision.
According to court documents, in October 2013, Peters was convicted of criminal sexual abuse in Illinois. His conviction came with a 10-year sex-offender-registration requirement, which began that same month.
Soon after moving to Indiana in August 2016, the Indiana Department of Correction advised Peters of his 10-year registration requirement under the Indiana Sex Offender Registration Act, which could be modified if registration requirements changed.
Peters moved back to Illinois in 2021 and later that year, he took a vacation in Florida for seven days.
There, he signed a “Notice of Sexual Predator and Sexual Offender Obligations” form, in which he agreed to maintain registration for life. Florida law requires a sex offender to register in the state if they take up “temporary residence” for a period of three or more days.
As part of the form, Peters’ registration would also be published on the state’s sexual-offender website, which currently lists Peters’ legal status as “Released – Subject to Registration.”
Upon moving back to Indiana in 2022, Peters registered with the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department, which initially listed the end date for his registration obligation as Oct. 15, 2023. In February 2022, however, the sheriff’s office notified Peters that he had to register as a lifetime offender because of Florida’s registration laws when he resided there during his vacation.
The Hamilton Superior Court granted the state’s motion for summary judgment, finding no issue of material fact as to whether Peters “is required to register for life in the state of Indiana because he is required to do so in the state of Florida.”
In a split opinion, the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision, holding that the plain language of the Jurisdiction Statute requires that individuals with out-of-state registration obligations also register in Indiana regardless of the source of the obligations.
In rejecting Peters’ claim that leaving Florida relieved him of his registration obligations, the appellate court majority pointed to his subject-to-registration status on the state’s sex-offender website.
But the Indiana Supreme Court concluded that because Peters is no longer required to register in Florida, the Indiana statute does not apply to him.
“Even if [Florida law] could be interpreted as imposing an ongoing obligation,” Justice Christopher Goff wrote for the majority, “the Florida statute does not require in-person registration for permanent out-of-state offenders like Peters, thus rendering the Jurisdiction Statute inapplicable.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush and Justice Mark Massa concurred with the high court’s opinion reversing the trial court’s decision.
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