ORDER

M. CASEY RODGERS, Chief District Judge.

Defendant Silas K. Ward has been charged with failing to update his sex offender registration, as required by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act ("SORNA"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 16901-16962, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a).1 Following a bench trial,2 the Court requested additional briefing by the parties. In response, the Government filed a legal brief and the Defendant filed a Motion for Judgment of Acquittal. The Court has carefully reviewed the matter and is prepared to rule.

Stipulated Facts

The parties have stipulated to the following facts:

Applicable Law

This case involves the complicated interplay between federal criminal law, a federal civil regulatory scheme, and state law sex offender registry requirements. In 2006, Congress enacted the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act "to protect children from sexual exploitation and violent crime, to prevent child abuse and child pornography, to promote Internet safety, and to honor the memory of Adam Walsh and other child victims." Pub. L. 109-248, 2006 HR 4472, 120 Stat. 587 (July 27, 2006). In relevant part, the Adam Walsh Act created SORNA and in doing so established "a comprehensive national system for the registration of [sex] offenders."4 42 U.S.C. § 16901; see also United States v. W.B.H., 664 F.3d 848, 851-52 (11th Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 133 S.Ct. 524 (2012). Additionally, the Adam Walsh Act amended the federal criminal code in relation to sex offender registration by imposing criminal liability for a failure to register or to update a registration as required by SORNA. See 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a). In particular, the criminal statute provides that whoever (1) is required under SORNA to register; (2) is a sex offender either (A) as defined under SORNA by reason of a federal conviction or (B) who travels in interstate or foreign commerce; and (3) "knowingly fails to register or update a registration as required by [SORNA], shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both." Id.

SORNA establishes the "[r]egistry requirements for sex offenders" in 42 U.S.C. § 16913, which provides:

A separate section of SORNA, 42 U.S.C. § 16914(a), requires sex offenders to provide the following information for inclusion in the sex offender registry:

42 U.S.C. § 16914(a).

When enacting SORNA, Congress granted the Attorney General broad interpretive and implementing authority. See 42 U.S.C. § 16912(b) (stating the Attorney General "shall issue guidelines and regulations to interpret and implement" SORNA).7 The Attorney General has complied with this directive by issuing final guidelines that are intended to "provide guidance and assistance to covered jurisdictions . . . in implementing the SORNA standards in their registration and notification programs." National Guidelines ("Guidelines"), 73 Fed. Reg. 38030, 38044-38070 (July 2, 2008).8 Recognizing that SORNA establishes "a set of minimum national standards and sets a floor, not a ceiling, for jurisdictions' programs," id. at 38046 (Part II B), the Attorney General has characterized the Guidelines as the "blueprint" for a "cooperative effort" between jurisdictions and responsible federal agencies to achieve "the SORNA goal of creating an effective and comprehensive national system of registration and notification" for sex offenders, id. at 38045 (Part I).

Relevant to this case, the Guidelines provides:

Id. at 73 Fed. Reg. at 38056 (Part VI, titled "Required Registration Information"). The Guidelines's implementation procedures also provide instructions to jurisdictions for keeping the registration current, stating, "[e]ach jurisdiction in which a sex offender is registered as a resident must require the sex offender to report immediately changes in vehicle information [and] temporary lodging information," among other things. Id. at 38065-66 (Part X). At the end of Part X, the Guidelines explains that SORNA's three-day in-person update requirement, contained in § 16913(c), "relates to changes in name, and to changes in residence, employment or school attendance" and clarifies that "[t]he means by which sex offenders are required to report other changes in registration information discussed in this Part [of the Guidelines] are matters that jurisdictions may determine in their discretion." Id. at 38067. Consistent with this language, Florida expressly requires sex offenders to notify officials within 48 hours of travel and temporary lodging away from their residence lasting five or more days.9 See Fla. Stat. § 775.21.

Discussion

The parties have stipulated that a conviction in this case requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the following elements:

See 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a). There is no dispute that the stipulated facts establish the first and second elements. The only remaining question then is whether, under the third element, Ward failed to update his registration as required by SORNA by not reporting his out-of-country travel on two occasions-between January 29 and February 11, 2010, and between September 5 and September 26, 2013.

The Government argues that SORNA requires sex offenders to update their registration when changes in temporary lodging occur, such as Ward's travel out of the country, based on SORNA's catchall provision, see 42 U.S.C. § 16914(a)(7), which authorizes the Attorney General to add "other information" to the list of information sex offenders must provide to the registry. According to the Government, because the Attorney General is generally authorized to implement SORNA pursuant to § 16912(b) and is specifically authorized to expand SORNA's registration requirements by adding "other information" to the list of registry requirements pursuant to the catchall provision, Ward's failure to provide temporary lodging information as required by the Guidelines was a "failure to update as required by SORNA." In response, Ward argues he is entitled to an acquittal because, while he may have violated Florida's registration requirements by not reporting his temporary travel, nothing in SORNA requires sex offenders to update their registration based on a change in temporary lodging, and the Guidelines's language is directed at the state jurisdictions implementing SORNA, not sex offenders. Thus, Ward argues he did not fail to update his registration "as required by SORNA" for purposes of federal criminal liability under § 2250(a). After careful consideration of the law and the parties' arguments, the Court agrees with Ward.

SORNA does not explicitly define the term "update" or include a section referencing a "duty to update" but speaks instead in terms of registering10 and "keeping the registration current." 42 U.S.C. § 16913(a). Specifically, Section16913(a) requires sex offenders to keep their registration current in each jurisdiction where they reside, work or attend school, and § 16913(c) defines how that is to be done. Under subsection (c), "[a] sex offender shall, not later than 3 business days after each change of name, residence, employment, or student status, appear in person in at least 1 jurisdiction involved pursuant to subsection (a) of this section and inform that jurisdiction of all changes in the information required for that offender in the sex offender registry." 42 U.S.C. § 16913(c) (titled, "Keeping the registration current"). Thus, according to the statute's plain text, a sex offender's duty to update and keep the registration current under § 16913(c) is triggered only when there has been a change in certain specifically listed sex offender information-namely, a change in name, residence, employment, or student status. See United States v. Lafferty, 608 F.Supp.2d 1131, 1142 (D.S.D. 2009) ("The disclosure edicts found in § 16913(c) are limited to those instances where there is a change in the offender's status, whether by way of a new or different name, home, job or school situation."). If a change in one of these items occurs, the duty to update arises under SORNA, and the sex offender then must report to the jurisdiction and update all changes in the required registry information. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 16913(c) & 16914(a) (defining information sex offenders must include in the registry).

The Government has not cited, nor has the Court found, any language in SORNA specifically instructing sex offenders to update their registration at a particular time to reflect changes in temporary out-of-state or out-of-country travel or lodging.11 Although not entirely clear, it appears the Government does not take issue with the above construction of § 16913(c) but instead urges the Court to consider the "full context" of SORNA and argues particularly that, when reviewed together, the catchall provision of § 16914(a)(7) (which authorizes the Attorney General to add "other information" to the list of what SORNA requires to be on the registry) and the Guidelines (which cites the catchall provision as authority for requiring temporary lodging information to be reported) create a separate and additional SORNA duty on sex offenders to update the "other information" required by the Attorney General's Guidelines. The Court rejects this argument because it reads too much into the catchall provision and is inconsistent with the plain language and structure of SORNA.

Granted, the catchall provision gives the Attorney General broad discretion to define "other information" that sex offenders must provide for inclusion in the registry, but there is no textual basis in that provision or elsewhere in SORNA for requiring a sex offender to update the registry based on a change in that "other information." As noted above, § 16913(c) details how sex offenders are to keep their registration current and requires sex offenders to update "all changes in the information required" whenever there is a change in name, residence, employment, or student status. See 42 U.S.C. § 16913(c). The full list of "information required" to be provided by sex offenders for inclusion on the registry is outlined in a separate SORNA provision (see 42 U.S.C. § 16914(a)), and it requires sex offenders to provide a number of things-their name, residence, employment, student status, social security number, license plate number, a description of any vehicle owned, and "any other information required by the Attorney General" (the catchall provision), such as the temporary lodging information at issue in this case.12 42 U.S.C. § 16914(a). By contrast, in § 16913(c), Congress specifically identified only four items (i.e., name, residence, employment, and student status) from § 16914(a)'s more expansive list when prescribing how sex offenders are to keep their registration current. Congress easily could have added other items from § 16914(a)'s list to § 16913(c), or articulated a duty to update in § 16914(a), but chose not to do so. This leads the Court to conclude that neither the other items listed in § 16914(a) nor "other information" required by the Attorney General such as the temporary lodging information triggers SORNA's duty to update for purposes of "keeping the registration current" under § 16913(c). The well-established canon of statutory construction that Congress is presumed to act intentionally when it includes a term in one section of a statute but omits it in another, applies. See, e.g., Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U.S. 395, 403-404 (1991); In re Piazza, 719 F.3d 1253, (11th Cir. 2013) ("[T]he general rule of thumb [is] that, when Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion."); United States v. Singh, 291 F.3d 756, 762 (11th Cir. 2002) (applying the statutory rule of construction that inclusion of one implies exclusion of others, unius est exclusio alterius). Thus, because SORNA contains an express instruction to sex offenders in § 16913(c) on how to keep their registration current, which intentionally omits some items listed in § 16914(a) as a trigger for that duty, the Court must decline the Government's invitation to divine a new SORNA duty to update for sex offenders. Also noteworthy is that § 16913(c) has no catchall provision specifically authorizing the Attorney General to require sex offenders to update when there is a change in "other information," and the Government has not identified any interpretive gap in SORNA that allows the Attorney General to impose on sex offenders a new duty to update; the express gap in the § 16914(a)(7) catchall only permits the Attorney General to define the required information for the registry and does not authorize creation of a new SORNA duty to update for sex offenders.13 Consequently, to accept the Government's argument that a change in temporary lodging triggers a SORNA duty to update separate from § 16913(c) would blur the distinction Congress has drawn between the list of information SORNA requires sex offenders to provide to the registry, see 16914(a), and SORNA's specific directions to sex offenders on how to keep their registration current, see § 16913(c).

This distinction was not lost on the Attorney General. In the Guidelines, the Attorney General does not purport to impose on sex offenders a new "SORNA" duty to update. The Attorney General identifies temporary lodging information in Part VI as "other information" required to be included on the registry, citing the catchall provision as authority, see National Guidelines, 73 Fed. Reg. at 38056, Part VI (titled "Required Registration Information"), and in Part X outlines instructions to jurisdictions for keeping this "other information" current when changes occur, see id., 73 Fed. Reg. at 38066, Part X (titled, "Keeping the Registration Current"). Thus, in exercising his discretionary and interpretive authority, the Attorney General maintains a clear distinction between defining information required to be included on the registry and instructing jurisdictions on how they keep the information current. The Attorney General's own comments implicitly recognize that the temporary lodging information could otherwise become out of date if jurisdictions did not require updates because a change in this "other information" does not trigger SORNA's § 16913(c) duty for sex offenders to report and update. See id. Consistent with this view, the Attorney General advises jurisdictions that they have discretion to determine the means by which sex offenders must report changes in this type of "other information," though SORNA requires in-person reporting for a change in name, residence, work or student status. Id., 73 Fed. Reg. at 38067. Thus, in Part X the Attorney General plainly directs "each jurisdiction" to require sex offenders to immediately report changes in temporary lodging, id., 73 Fed. Reg. at 38066 (emphasis added), presumably because SORNA does not.14

This distinction between what SORNA requires sex offenders to provide for inclusion in the registry and what the Guidelines requires of jurisdictions is not inconsequential when considering criminal liability. See United States v. Belaire, 480 F. App'x 284, 287-88 (5th Cir. 2012) (unpublished). For instance, in Belaire, the Fifth Circuit cautioned, "[i]t is important to differentiate the requirement to report temporary lodging information [contained in the regulations] from the obligation to update residency changes [in SORNA]."15 Id. at 287. This Court agrees. Jurisdictions may or may not choose to implement the Attorney General's requirements.16 Sex offenders, on the other hand, are not free to choose and must comply with both state and federal law. See United States v. Brown, 586 F.3d 1342, 1349 (11th Cir. 2009) ("[A] sex offender is not exempt from SORNA's registration requirements merely because the jurisdiction in which he is required to register has not yet implemented SORNA."), cert. denied, 559 U.S. 1108 (2010). Sex offenders are subject to federal criminal prosecution, however, only for their failure to update "as required by [SORNA]." 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a). Thus, the Court finds that a provision of the Attorney General's Guidelines directing jurisdictions, which may or may not implement it, to require sex offenders to update temporary lodging information cannot be the basis for imposing federal criminal liability against a sex offender for failing to update as required by SORNA.17 Indeed, as stated, the Attorney General has acknowledged that in certain respects, the Guidelines may exceed the requirements of SORNA,18 and in the Attorney General's own words, the Guidelines are a mere "blueprint" for jurisdictions to use in implementing it. 73 Fed. Reg. at 38045. In § 2250, Congress did not criminalize a sex offender's failure to update as required by the Attorney General or as required by state law, but as required by SORNA, and "[t]aking account of SORNA's overall structure, [there is] little reason to doubt that Congress intended § 2250 to do exactly what it says." Carr v. United States, 560 U.S. 438, 456 (2010).

Accordingly, because Ward had no change of name, residence, employment, or student status, the Court concludes he had no SORNA-defined duty to appear in Florida and report "all changes" in his registry information to keep his registration current under § 16913(c). Ward's Motion for Judgment of Acquittal (doc. 28) is therefore GRANTED.

DONE AND ORDERED.