United States v. Johnson

Undra Demetrius Johnson (defendant), convicted of a sex offense in 1995, was later required to register under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). In February 2007, the Attorney General issued an interim rule applying SORNA retroactively without following the notice-and-comment procedures normally required by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), citing a good-cause exception. The AG accepted post-rule comments but didn't respond before finalizing full SORNA regulations, including retroactivity, through proper notice-and-comment rulemaking in July 2008. Johnson failed to register after moving to Mississippi in 2008 and was convicted of violating SORNA; he appealed, challenging how the retroactivity rule had been adopted.