36-G-4. The Adam Walsh Act
(a) Generally
In July 2006, Congress passed The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. Title I of the Act set out a national system for the registration of sex offenders called the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act ("SORNA").112 SORNA is a very complicated law, and states have had difficulty implementing it. Therefore, this Chapter will only discuss some key provisions, as it is unlikely your state has adopted all of SORNA. You must check your own state's law carefully and see what, if any, parts of SORNA it has adopted.113
New York has not adopted SORNA (which sounds similar to, but is different from SORA, the New York State law). If you live in New York, you must register with the New York state registration system, SORA, described in Section G(2) of this Chapter. You may nonetheless have to register with SORNA if you travelled between states.114
If your state has adopted the SORNA system, SORNA applies to you if you have been convicted of a "sex offense" in your state.115 SORNA requires that certain juvenile offenders register as well. If you were fourteen-years-old or older at the time of the offense, and were convicted or adjudicated "delinquent" for "aggravated sexual abuse" or a similar crime, or for an attempt or conspiracy to commit these crimes, you have to register.116
You need not register if you were convicted of a crime listed in SORNA before it existed. The Supreme Court recently reversed a Department of Justice rule to the contrary.117
Under the Attorney General's guidelines for SORNA, some definitions of offenses may be broader than they are under other laws and may apply to you even if they had not before SORNA.118
States have been resistant to SORNA because of how difficult and expensive it is to put into practice, and because parts of the law are different than states' own laws.119
Just like under New York law (SORA), SORNA requires sex offenders to register either just before release, or right after sentencing if you are not in custody.120 SORNA, like SORA, divides sex offenders into three tiers based on the seriousness of their crime and places different restrictions on each. Tiers are assigned according to the length of imprisonment, the age of the victim of the offense, and the nature of the offense committed.121
How long you have to register as a sex offender depends on what SORNA Tier you are in. Tier I offenders must register for fifteen years; Tier II offenders must register for twenty-five years; and Tier III offenders must register for their entire lives.122
Under SORNA, you will also have to personally appear before the government to verify their registration information.123 How often you have to appear before the government is determined by which Tier offender you are. Tier I offenders must appear in person at least once a year; Tier II offenders have to appear at least every six months; and Tier III offenders must appear at least every three months.124
If anything changes during the period of time in which you are required to register, you must notify...
