Mathias, J.
Thomas Andrews (“Andrews”) filed a petition in Hamilton Circuit Court requesting that his name be removed from Indiana’s sex offender registry. Specifically, Andrews, who was convicted of sex offenses in Massachusetts in 1984, argued that his name should be removed from the registry pursuant to our supreme court’s decision in Wallace v. State, 905 N.E.2d 371 (Ind. 2009). Because we conclude that requiring Andrews to register as a sex offender violates Article 1, Section 24 of the Indiana Constitution prohibiting ex post facto laws, and that Indiana state courts do not have the authority to consider whether federal statutory penalties attach to Andrews’s conduct, we reverse and remand with instructions to the trial court to grant Andrews’s petition for removal from the sex offender registry.
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In light of its concession that Andrews is not required to register under INSORA, the State is left only with its argument that Andrews has an independent duty to register under federal law. In 1994, Congress began to require States to maintain federally compliant systems for sex-offender registration and community notification. Failure to do so resulted in the loss of certain law enforcement funds. “In an effort to make these state schemes more comprehensive, uniform, and effective, Congress in 2006 enacted [US SO RNA] as part of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act” for the stated purpose of protecting the public from sex offenders. Carr v. United States, 130 S.Ct. 2229 (2010); 42 U.S.C. § 16901. Rather than establishing a federal agency to implement USSORNA, Congress, through its spending power, Article I, Section 8, directed all states and the District of Columbia to create local registries that comply with specific national standards. 42 U.S.C. §§ 16911(10), 16912(a). Included in its many provisions,
[US]SORNA instructs States to maintain sex-offender registries that compile an array of information about sex offenders; to make this information publicly available online; to share the information with other jurisdictions and with the Attorney General for inclusion in a comprehensive national sex-offender registry; and to “provide a criminal penalty that includes a maximum term of imprisonment that is greater than 1 year for the failure of a sex offender to comply with the requirements of this subchapter.” Sex offenders, in turn, are required to “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,” and to appear in person periodically to “allow the jurisdiction to take a current photograph, and verify the information in each registry in which that offender is required to be registered.
Id. at 2240-41 (citing 42 U.S.C. §§ 16913, 16914, 16918-21). [Footnote omitted.]
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The Act also established a federal criminal offense covering any person who ( 1) “is required to register under [USSORNA],” (2) “travels in interstate or foreign commerce,” and (3) “knowingly fails to register or update a registration.” 18 U.S.C. § 2250. Congress’s intent in enacting 18 U.S.C. § 2250 was simply “to subject to federal prosecution sex offenders who elude [US]SORNA’s registration requirements by traveling in interstate commerce.” Carr, 130 S.Ct. at 2241.
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Indiana is the only state that has ever required Andrews to register as a sex offender, and he has resided in Indiana since 1997. But while Andrews may have a federal duty to register under US SORNA if he engages in interstate travel, and could be subject to prosecution in federal district court under 18 U.S.C. § 2250, if he fails to do so, this is not the issue before us.
Andrews has filed his petition in Indiana state court seeking removal of his name from Indiana’s sex offender registry. After acknowledging that our state sex offender registry law does not run afoul of the Ex Post Facto Clause of the United States Constitution, our supreme court concluded in Wallace that Hoosiers are entitled to greater protection under the prohibition on ex post facto laws contained in the Indiana Constitution. [Footnote omitted.] . . . .
Andrews, who on the record before us is an apparently rehabilitated and productive citizen of our state, was convicted of a sex offense almost thirty years ago, and well before Indiana enacted INSORA. Accordingly, pursuant to our supreme court’s opinion in Wallace, we must conclude that Andrews’s petition for removal of his name from Indiana’s sex offender registry should have been granted.
VAIDIK, J. and BARNES, J., concur.