Cal. Supremes: Forgetting To Register is Willful Failure to Register. People v. Barker, no. S115438 (Cal.SupremeCourt, Aug. 30, 2004).

Justice Brown, writing for the six-judge majority, saw some "superficial" appeal to the argument that forgetting to register is not a willful failure to register, but concluded the legislature did not intend that result:

Admittedly, the argument that a person cannot be said to know something if he or she has forgotten it, for whatever reason, does have a superficial plausibility. However, we agree with Cox and the majority below: It is simply inconceivable the Legislature intended just forgetting to be a sufficient excuse for failing to comply with section 290’s registration requirements.

The majority left one out: "we express no opinion as to whether the instruction would be erroneous where a defendant’s forgetfulness allegedly arose from an acute psychological condition, or a chronic deficit of memory or intelligence."

Justice Kennard dissented.