New Mexico Seeks Adam Walsh Act Compliance

State legislators in New Mexico are expected to introduce Adam Walsh Act-compliant legislation soon and it will be up to the former Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of Commerce-nominee Governor Bill Richardson to sign it.  From the Valencia County News-Bulletin:

With the turn of a calendar page, a new year begins. With it come new federal guidelines for the registration of convicted sex offenders in the form of the Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act.

The federal act was passed in 2007, and the final guidelines were issued in 2008, Regina Chacon of the State Department of Public Safety (DPS) said. Now it's New Mexico's turn to come into compliance with the federal statute.

Compliancy with the act includes juvenile registration, retroactive registration and technology enhancements that include mapping of registrants, e-mail notifications of their locations and a link to a national database.

Chacon said during the January legislative session, which begins its 60-day session on Jan. 20., the act will be introduced to the legislature and the governor will have to sign the bill into effect.

"We have tried to come up with something that will comply with the Adam Walsh bill. We are already compliant with the requirements for our Web site and database," Chacon said. "We will have to start the juvenile and retroactive registrations."

An example of when retroactive registry would happen is if someone is convicted on a burglary charge in 2009, after the act goes into effect, and was convicted of criminal sexual penetration in the first degree in 1975. "They were not required to register then, but they would be now," Chacon said.

She went on to say that with the retroactive registration in place, registered sex offender numbers would increase as well as the research it takes to put them in the state's database.

"We do in-depth research of conviction and court documents," Chacon said. "We will not put someone on the registry until we have absolutely verified the conviction. We will have to get that information from court documents, which, with the older records, those documents are the sole source. That will probably be one of the hardest tasks."

Currently, the state will place a juvenile on the sex offender registry if they are convicted and sentenced under adult sanctions. "A 17-year-old convicted as an adult would have to register," Chacon said. "Under the Adam Walsh Act, they will be registered even if the juvenile is simply adjudicated."