by Vincent J. Narducci
Daily Lobo
Mayor Martin Chavez defended a measure aimed at increasing the severity of registration laws for criminal sex offenders at a panel discussion at the UNM School of Law Tuesday.
In addition to the mayor, Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White, former State Supreme Court Justice Gene Franchini and American Civil Liberties Union Treasurer Tova Indritz also participated in the discussion.
Current New Mexico statutes, also known as Megan's Laws, require that anyone over the age of 18 who has been convicted of a sexual offense after 1995 must register with the county sheriff no later than 10 days after being released from the corrections department or changing residences.
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Offenders must provide his or her name, date of birth, social security number, address, place of employment, sex offense for which they were convicted and the dates and places of their convictions.
Chavez's plan proposes increasing the strictness of these laws. Sex offenders would be forced to register with APD if they had been convicted after 1970. Offenders would also be prohibited from living within 100 feet of a school, one mile of a former victim or to be alone with any child at any time.
Chavez, who has pledged to make Albuquerque the nation's toughest city on sexual offenders, blamed soft state laws for the Albuquerque relocation of convicted sex offender David Siebers. New Mexico was the last state in the union to adopt this kind legislation, the mayor said.
"We were the fourth community that he came to because his attorney, who handled a lot of these cases, said that New Mexico was the place to go, because we have very lenient laws," Chavez said.
He added that the media circus surrounding Siebers made New Mexico a visible choice for other relocating offenders and that, as mayor, his job is to protect the public by sending a message that New Mexico is not a place for sex offenders to hide.
White, who voiced support for the Mayor's proposal, said that the department currently has 620 registered offenders, 475 of whom were actively monitored by the Sex Offender Registration Tracking team, a special force within the sheriff's office. White also said that the SORT team had served 85 warrants for non-compliance of registration and that about 40 to 60 offenders were currently considered at high risk for striking again.
White also noted that the Web site database of sexual offenders, available at www.nmsexoffender.com, was "far and away the most visited governmental Web page in New Mexico."
A central theme to the discussion was the issue of whether Megan's Laws violated rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, specifically the 8th and 14th Amendments, the Ex Post Facto clause and double jeopardy laws.
Indritz, who is a local defense attorney, said that registration laws made it very difficult for people to maintain steady employment, which is central to their rehabilitation into society. White took less sympathy for the offenders, saying that the panel discussion was a "sterile environment," not akin to the real world.
"When you've seen the things that we have seen, you will think and act differently. It has a tendency to harden you," he said. "I fought very hard for our current Megan Laws, because I recognized, from many of the criminals that we arrested, that they had a propensity for these kinds of crimes, and the probability that they would commit these crimes again was so high that I felt it necessary that they should not be able to live in secrecy."
On March 5, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld sex offender registration laws in both Alaska and Connecticut, decisions that would likely guide states and cities looking to introduce new legislation.
The discussion, which was sponsored by Professor Sedillo Lopez's Community Lawyering Clinic, also featured a speech by UNM Psychology Professor Samuel Roll, which gave the psychological background of sex offenders. Roll stressed the differing circumstances of cases involving sexual misconduct and said that rehabilitation should be more important than punishment.
Suellyn Scarnecchia, dean of the UNM Law School, moderated the discussion, which about 30 people attended.
