Jodi Rave: Tribes testify on Adam Walsh Act
Friday, July 18, 2008
Filed Under:
Law
|
Politics
"A looming federal deadline that requires tribes to track and register sex offenders in their communities was both embraced and denounced by tribal leaders in a Senate hearing on Thursday.
The Adam Walsh Act, a law to track the whereabouts of people who commit sex crimes, calls for tribes to comply with the federal law by next April or step aside so a state's attorney general can do the job.
Sen. Byron Dorgan D-N.D., chairman of the
Senate Indian Affairs
Committee, called on tribal leaders and national spokesmen to testify on Indian Country's success and failures in complying with the sex offender registration act.
“Warm Springs was surprised and upset, as was most of Indian Country, to learn that Congress has jeopardized our sovereignty, subjecting our governments to the mandates of the Adam Walsh Act,” said Chairman Ron Suppah of the
Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. “Faced with the option to comply or lose our jurisdiction, we have opted to comply even though we have little experience in registering sex offenders.”
States, on the other hand, have had decades to create sex offender monitoring systems, said Jacqueline Johnson, executive director of the
National Congress of American
Indians in Washington, D.C."
Get the Story:
Jodi Rave: Tribal leaders testify to Congress on mandate to register sex offenders
(The Missoulian 7/18)
Committee Notice:
OVERSIGHT
HEARING on Tracking Sex Offenders in Indian Country: Tribal Implementation of
the Adam Walsh Act (July 17, 2008)
Relevant Laws:
Adam
Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act |
Violence
Against Women Act of 2005
Relevant Documents:
White
House Fact Sheet: The Adam Walsh Child Protection And Safety Act Of 2006 |
President
Signs H.R. 4472, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006
Minnesota Supreme Court Decision:
Minnesota
v Peter John Jones (March 22, 2007)
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(7/17)
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Cherokee Nation weighs Adam Walsh implementation
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Leech Lake
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Reminder:
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Tribes face deadline to join national sex offender
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