All Roll Calls
Yes: 153 • No: 0
UtahS.B. 412025 General SessionSenateWALLET
Sex, Kidnap, and Child Abuse Offender Registry Amendments
Sponsored By: Keith Grover (Republican)
Signed by Governor
RecodificationDepartment of CorrectionsJudicial OperationsLaw Enforcement and Criminal JusticeLegislative OperationsOffender Registries
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25 provisions identified: 8 benefits, 12 costs, 5 mixed.
Registration violations bring jail and probation
Knowingly failing to register or giving false or incomplete information is a third-degree felony for felony-based or lifetime registration. It is a class A misdemeanor for misdemeanor-based registration. Penalties include at least 30 days in custody and one year of probation; courts and the parole board cannot waive required service. Each year of noncompliance adds one year of registration. These classifications also cover qualifying juvenile adjudications for offenses committed before May 3, 2023.
Most minors avoid offender registration
People who commit registrable offenses while under 18 after May 3, 2023, generally do not have to register. Registration still applies when they are charged by criminal information in juvenile court, transferred to district court, and convicted. A separate rule covers qualifying youth adjudicated for child abuse or sex offenses and committed to secure care. The youth division must register them if they remain in custody 30 days before age 21, or 25 for serious youth offenders.
Who registers and for how long
Utah requires registration for listed child abuse, sex, and kidnap offenses, including equivalent offenses from other jurisdictions. Coverage includes some nonresident workers and students, people found not guilty by reason of insanity, and people registered elsewhere after 10 days in Utah within 12 months. Registration lasts 10 years after the sentence ends for listed offenses, or life for specified serious or repeat offenses. A lifetime-registration offense committed before age 21 gets a 10-year term instead if the sentencing court finds no force or coercion. Qualifying people registered because of an outside conviction follow that jurisdiction’s registration period.
Lifetime registration shapes vehicle work licenses
A state or federal offense requiring lifetime sex-offender registration is grounds to deny, suspend, or revoke covered motor vehicle occupational licenses. This can also affect relevant business partners, officers, and directors. For salesperson applicants or licensees whose fingerprints are in the bureau's separate file, the bureau must report qualifying state-law arrest entries to the Motor Vehicle Division. The alert rule covers applicable state or regional databases and offenses requiring lifetime sex-offender registration. Both rules replace the former broader reference to a registrable sex offense with a lifetime-registration trigger.
Lifetime registrants can seek twenty-year removal
Eligible lifetime registrants can ask a court for removal after the required 20-year period. The clock starts at the latest applicable event: probation placement, release to parole, sentence end without parole, entry into a community-based residential program, or release from juvenile division custody. Applicants need a bureau certificate showing no class A misdemeanor, felony, or capital felony conviction during the most recent 20-year period. They must complete ordered treatment and pay all ordered restitution. They must submit an evidence-based public-safety risk assessment completed within six months before filing, meeting parole-termination assessment standards. Qualifying out-of-state applicants must face lifetime registration in their home jurisdiction. They must live in Utah at least 183 days per year for two consecutive years and intend to live mainly in Utah.
Some defendants face lower sexual-offense penalties
Covered unlawful sexual activity with a minor can receive class B misdemeanor treatment instead of a third-degree felony. The defendant must prove it is more likely than not that the age gap was under four years, or the defendant was 18 and in high school. Conduct listed in Section 76-5-401(4) is excluded from that reduction. Separately, sex-offender status supports the child-lewdness felony enhancement only when the earlier offense involved someone under 18.
Some offenders leave or avoid registration
Utah must automatically remove people whose only listed offenses qualify for removal, or after formal notice that a conviction was reversed, vacated, or pardoned. Listed people can request removal, and the department must respond within 30 days or give notice of up to 30 additional days. When the parole board pardons the conviction behind a listing, it must order removal of the related name and personal information. That order also satisfies the notification requirement. An offense under Section 76-5-401.3 is excluded from the specified registration requirement.
Some registrants can seek five-year removal
Some people with a 10-year registration term can ask a court for removal five years after their sentence ends. Eligible offenses include specified enticing-a-minor, voyeurism, kidnapping, and sexual offenses, plus listed attempts, conspiracies, and an out-of-state offense. Some sexual offenses have victim-age-gap limits. The offense must be their only registrable offense, with no later conviction except a traffic offense. Applicants need a bureau certificate confirming their record, must complete ordered treatment, and must pay all ordered restitution.
Ten-year registrants gain a court removal path
People serving 10-year registration terms for listed offenses can ask a court for removal after the required 10-year period. Covered offenses include listed trafficking, sexual, kidnapping-related, and repeat lewdness or sexual-battery offenses, with offense-specific limits. The clock starts at the latest applicable event: probation placement, release to parole, sentence end without parole, entry into a community-based residential program, or release from juvenile division custody. Applicants need a bureau certificate showing no class A misdemeanor, felony, or capital felony conviction during the most recent 10-year period. They must complete ordered treatment and pay all ordered restitution. Qualifying out-of-state registrants cannot face lifetime registration in their home jurisdiction. They must live in Utah at least 183 days per year for two consecutive years and intend to live mainly in Utah.
Expungement offers limited relief for offenders
Convictions or combinations of offenses creating sex-offender or child-abuse-offender status are barred from an expungement eligibility certificate. A limited exception covers qualifying sexual offenses committed at ages 14 through 17, subject to the law’s adult-transfer restriction. Expungement alone does not end registration; removal under the registry law is still required. Prosecutors can share specified expunged records with other prosecutors, but not the general public. This covers convictions and charges dismissed after completed pleas in abeyance for listed offender-status, stalking, domestic violence, and weapons offenses.
Limits on offenders near children and victims
Sex offenders whose registrable offense involved someone under 18 cannot enter protected areas or coach, manage, or train teams including minors. Exceptions cover required parenting duties, specified public-school activities, and public buildings when the offender avoids their day-care or preschool premises. Homeowner associations can restrict these offenders from protected areas they own, operate, or maintain, subject to the statutory exceptions. A separate restriction within 1,000 feet of a victim’s home requires probation or parole for a registrable offense. The victim, parent, or guardian must elect it and authorize notice; the department must give written notice describing the restricted area.
Reduced convictions do not erase registration
A conviction entered one degree below the statutory level still requires registration when its elements match a listed offense. The law also removes the cited registration exemption for unlawful sexual activity with a minor receiving reduced class A or B misdemeanor treatment. It removes another exemption for a first sexual-abuse-of-a-minor offense committed before age 21. Other applicable registry rules determine whether those people must register.
Registrants face twice-yearly check-ins and reporting
Registrants must check in personally during their birth month and six months later, with probation and parole staff if supervised, otherwise local police or sheriffs. They must report residence, work, vehicle, and covered school changes within three business days; secondary residences include places stayed overnight at least 10 nights in 12 months. Required details include identity, contact information, Social Security number, addresses, work, volunteering, school, professional licenses, online identifiers, and vehicles owned or driven more than 12 times yearly. Photos, fingerprints, and DNA are required only if not already provided; passport and immigration documents apply when relevant. Exclusive employer-network credentials and financial-account identifiers are excluded, and victim-identifying or locating details must be redacted.
Removal applicants pay fees and risk penalties
People seeking a registry-removal eligibility certificate pay an application fee and, if approved, an issuance fee. The law does not state the amounts; fees cover eligibility-review costs. Knowingly or intentionally giving false or misleading information in that application is a class B misdemeanor. The Bureau of Criminal Identification can also deny the certificate for false or misleading information without a prosecution.
Sex-offender parents face reunification service limits
A parent’s qualifying sex-offender status creates a presumption against reunification services in juvenile court. The court must find that circumstance by clear and convincing evidence. This is a presumption against services, not an automatic denial.
Strict review for lifetime registry removal
For eligible lifetime registrants seeking removal after 20 years, courts need clear and convincing evidence of rehabilitation and no public-safety threat. Courts can weigh offense details, victim information, supervision, stability, support, conduct, and risk assessments. Courts cannot consider removal unless the person substantially complied with registration rules at all times. After denial, petitioners generally must wait three years to file again. Lifetime registrants using the 20-year process must wait eight years.
Voyeurism offenses face revised registry treatment
The coordinated amendments add listed class A misdemeanors for voyeurism, recording or photographing it, and sharing resulting images to the registry-law offense list. For the specified rule in Section 76-5-419(3), a guilty or no-contest plea held in abeyance counts as a conviction. The law sets May 7, 2025, for these coordinated amendments, contingent on H.B. 21 also becoming law.
Agencies track offender reports and custody changes
Police must notify Public Safety of registrable-offense complaints within three business days and suspected-offender arrests within five business days. Corrections must register covered offenders at probation placement, facility commitment, release, escape, residential-program entry or exit, and probation or parole termination. Sheriffs register covered offenders entering or leaving non-Corrections facilities when outside Corrections custody; the division registers covered offenders before release. State mental hospitals must register committed offenders at admission and discharge. Custodians must notify local police within a reasonable time after outside assignments, such as firefighting, except supervised temporary releases.
Local agencies and courts maintain registry records
Local police or sheriffs must register residents who are not supervised by Adult Probation and Parole. Staff who register people must complete department training and certification, then certify again each year. Utah courts must send the registry office signed judgments and sentences for registrable convictions within three business days. Courts must also send signed orders changing those convictions within three business days.
Youth groups must screen adult workers
Youth organizations serving 25 or more children must check Utah’s registry and the National Sex Offender Public Website before hiring or accepting youth-worker volunteers. This rule covers organizations not already required by state or federal law to conduct background checks. A person listed on either source cannot serve as a youth worker. The rule applies to adults 18 or older with regular, repeated care, supervision, guidance, or control of children.
Registrants face name-change notice and disclosure
Name-change petitions must state whether the person is required to register, not just whether they are already registered. Courts can request more information for the required registry determination. A registered offender’s name change cannot conflict with the public interest, and the offender must notify the department at least 30 days before the hearing. The court must send the order within 10 days. The registry website must show both the former and changed names as aliases.
Registrants pay yearly fees up to $125
Registrants must pay Utah $100 each year during their birth month for every year registration is required. Another registering agency can charge up to $25 more yearly. People confined in a secure facility or state mental hospital are exempt. State-collected fees support registry upkeep and compliance monitoring.
Certain felony offenders cannot serve papers
People with felony convictions for offenses that create qualifying sex-offender status cannot serve papers issued by Utah courts. This limits access to that court-related work.
Public registry shares offender conviction changes
Utah’s Department of Public Safety must operate the combined Sex, Kidnap, and Child Abuse Offender Registry and publish specified information. Covered records of court actions changing registrable convictions are public unless another registry restriction applies. The department must remove details that identify or locate victims. Public access increases, while covered offenders’ conviction-change information is exposed. Members of the public are not required to obtain registry information.
Registry duties follow offenders across state lines
People required to register who enter Utah from another jurisdiction must register with Utah Public Safety within 10 days. This applies regardless of their planned stay. Covered out-of-state juvenile cases follow the same deadline and registration frequency, subject to the exception in Section 53-29-404(7). Agencies must explain ongoing duties when registering people on probation, released from confinement, or whose sentences have expired. The notice covers notifying agencies where people live or plan to live after an interstate move, even without state residency. Lifetime parolees under a parole agreement must verify their address at least every 60 days.
Sponsors & Cosponsors
Sponsor
Keith Grover
Republican • Senate
Cosponsors
Gwynn, Matthew H.
Affiliation unavailable
Roll Call Votes
Senate vote • 2/10/2025
Senate/ concurs with House amendment
Yes: 25 • No: 0
House vote • 2/6/2025
House/ passed 3rd reading
Yes: 74 • No: 0
House vote • 2/3/2025
House Comm - Substitute Recommendation
Yes: 9 • No: 0
House vote • 2/3/2025
House Comm - Consent Calendar Recommendation
Yes: 9 • No: 0
House vote • 2/3/2025
House Comm - Favorable Recommendation
Yes: 9 • No: 0
Senate vote • 1/23/2025
Senate/ substituted
Yes: 0 • No: 0
Senate vote • 1/23/2025
Senate/ uncircled
Yes: 0 • No: 0
Senate vote • 1/23/2025
Senate/ passed 2nd & 3rd readings/ suspension
Yes: 27 • No: 0
Senate vote • 1/21/2025
Senate/ circled
Yes: 0 • No: 0
Senate vote • Unknown
Senate/ circled
Yes: 0 • No: 0
Senate vote • Unknown
Senate/ substituted
Yes: 0 • No: 0
Senate vote • Unknown
Senate/ uncircled
Yes: 0 • No: 0
Actions Timeline
Governor Signed
3/25/2025Senate/ to Governor
3/17/2025SenateSenate/ received enrolled bill from Printing
3/17/2025SenateSenate/ enrolled bill to Printing
3/13/2025SenateEnrolled Bill Returned to House or Senate
3/13/2025Draft of Enrolled Bill Prepared
2/12/2025Bill Received from Senate for Enrolling
2/12/2025Senate/ signed by President/ sent for enrolling
2/11/2025SenateSenate/ received from House
2/11/2025SenateHouse/ to Senate
2/10/2025HouseHouse/ signed by Speaker/ returned to Senate
2/10/2025HouseHouse/ received from Senate
2/10/2025HouseSenate/ to House
2/10/2025SenateSenate/ concurs with House amendment
2/10/2025SenateSenate/ placed on Concurrence Calendar
2/7/2025SenateSenate/ received from House
2/7/2025SenateHouse/ to Senate
2/6/2025HouseHouse/ passed 3rd reading
2/6/2025HouseHouse/ 3rd reading
2/6/2025HouseHouse/ 2nd reading
2/4/2025HouseHouse/ comm rpt/ substituted/ Consent Calendar
2/4/2025HouseHouse Comm - Consent Calendar Recommendation
2/3/2025HouseHouse Comm - Favorable Recommendation
2/3/2025HouseHouse Comm - Substitute Recommendation
2/3/2025HouseHouse/ to standing committee
1/29/2025House
Bill Text
Enrolled
3/13/2025
Substitute #3
1/24/2025
Substitute #2
1/21/2025
Substitute #1
1/10/2025
Introduced
12/20/2024
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