Basing his decision on a legal technicality, a judge on Tuesday dismissed charges against a homeless man accused of violating Kansas’ offender-registration law.

In a hearing in district court, Judge Jack Murphy found that prosecutors had filed charges against Dyall P. Leewright under the wrong section of the registration law. Dist. Atty. Charles Branson said he planned to file a new charge against Leewright as soon as possible.

The registration law requires people convicted of sex crimes and other violent crimes to register within 10 days of moving to a community, and to notify authorities if they change their address.

Leewright, who has a 1996 conviction in Oregon for statutory rape, registered when he moved to Lawrence in 2004. Prosecutors say he then stopped communicating with police, but Leewright says he notified them that he was moving to Colorado.

Branson’s office filed a charge against him earlier this year, and he was arrested last month while hitchhiking in Hays.

Leewright already was free on bond at the time of Murphy’s decision.