The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is a federal statute that was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006. The Walsh Act organizes sex offenders into three tiers according to the crime committed, and mandates that Tier 3 offenders (the most serious tier) update their whereabouts every three months with lifetime registration requirements. Tier 2 offenders must update their whereabouts every six months with 25 years of registration, and Tier 1 offenders must update their whereabouts every year with 15 years of registration. Failure to register and update information is a felony under the law. States are required to publicly disclose information of Tier 2 and Tier 3 offenders, at minimum. It also contains civil commitment provisions for sexually dangerous people.
The Act also organizes all state and territory sex offender registries into one searchable national database and instructs each state and territory to apply identical criteria for posting offender data on the internet (i.e., offender's name, address, date of birth, place of employment, photograph, etc.). The Act was named after Adam Walsh, an American boy who was abducted from a Florida shopping mall in 1981 and later found murdered, his case remained unsolved for nearly 30 years.
As of 2024, the Justice Department reports that 18 states, 137 tribes and 4 territories have substantially implemented requirements of the Adam Walsh Act.
History The Adam Walsh Act emerged from Congress following the passage of separate bills in the House and Senate (H.R. 3132 and S. 1086 respectively). The Act is also known as the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), the majority of the provisions of which were originally enacted under the Public Health and Welfare statutes at 42 U.S.C. § 16911 et seq, but were reclassified to the Crime Control and Law Enforcement statutes at 34 U.S.C. § 20911 in 2018. The act's provisions fall into four categories: a revised sex offender registration system, child and sex related amendments to federal criminal and procedure, child protective grant programs, and other initiatives designed to prevent and punish sex offenders and those who victimize children.
The sex offender registration provisions replace the Jacob Wetterling Act provisions with a statutory scheme under which states are required to modify their registration systems in accordance with federal requirements at the risk of losing 10% of their Byrne program law enforcement assistance funds.42 U.S.C. 16925 The act seeks to close gaps in the prior system, provide more information on a wider range of offenders, and make the information more readily available to the public and law enforcement officials.
In the area of federal criminal law and procedure, the act enlarges the kidnapping statute, increases the number of federal capital offenses, enhances the mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment and other penalties that attend various federal sex offenses, establishes a civil commitment procedure for federal sex offenders, authorizes random searches as a condition for sex offender probation and supervised release, outlaws internet date drug trafficking, permits the victims of state crimes to participate in related federal habeas corpus proceedings, and eliminates the statute of limitations for certain sex offenses and crimes committed against children.
The act revives the authorization of appropriations under the Police Athletic Youth Enrichment Act among its other grant provisions and requires the establishment of a national child abuse registry among its other child safety initiatives.
The Act also establishes a post-conviction civil commitment scheme. Section 4248 of the Act contains the Commitment Provision, which authorizes the federal government to initiate commitment proceedings with respect to any federal prisoner in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.Barker, The Adam Walsh Act: Un-civil Commitment, available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=1496934 Under this provision, even prisoners who have never been previously charged with or convicted of a sex crime may be civilly committed after completing their entire prison sentence. Prior to Supreme Court review, the federal Circuit courts were split on the question of whether Congress had the authority to enact this provision. On May 17, 2010, the Supreme Court upheld the law, ruling in United States v. Comstock that the Civil Commitment Provision was within Congress's authority.United States v. Comstock, 551 F.3d 274 (4th Cir. 2009), cert. granted, 129 S.Ct. 2828 (U.S. June 22, 2009/Decided May 17, 2010) (No. 08-1224).
At the time of passage, at least 100,000 of more than a half million sex offenders in the United States and the District of Columbia were said to be 'missing' and unregistered as required by law. The act allocated federal funding to assist states in maintaining and improving these programs so a comprehensive system for tracking sex offenders and alerting communities would be developed. The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act was signed on the 25th anniversary of the abduction of Adam Walsh from a shopping mall in Florida; Walsh was found murdered 16 days after his abduction in 1981. Adam's father John Walsh, founder of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), was joined by other children's advocates to mount an aggressive campaign to get the bill passed into law. As part of the campaign, Walsh was joined by Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, representatives from the NCMEC, and other victims' advocates and parents. These included Patty Wetterling, children's advocate from Minnesota and mother of Jacob Wetterling, who was abducted and murdered in October 1989; Mark Lunsford, whose daughter Jessica was killed in Florida in 2005; Linda Walker, the mother of North Dakota college student Dru Sjodin who was kidnapped and murdered by a released Minnesota sex offender in November 2003; and Erin Runnion, whose five-year-old daughter Samantha Runnion was raped and killed in California in 2002.
In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of United States v. Haymond, in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit had overturned a provision of the Adam Walsh Act that established a five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence, and a possible life without parole sentence, for sex offenders who, in a revocation hearing before a judge, are found by a preponderance of the evidence to have committed new sex offenses while on supervised release.
On June 26, 2019, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 decision in United States v. Haymond that the defendant's Fifth and Sixth amendment rights to a trial by jury were violated. This shifted the burden of proof from preponderance of the evidence to beyond a reasonable doubt.
Legal applications Gives the U.S. Attorney General the authority to apply the law retroactively. Gives a federal Judge the ability to civilly commit individuals who are in the custody of the federal prison system if it is proven that the individual (1) has engaged or attempted to engage in sexually violent conduct or child molestation; (2) suffers from a serious mental illness, abnormality, or disorder; and, (3) as a result, would have serious difficulty refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation if released. A hearing is available to the involuntarily committed individual every six months to reconsider their commitment status if requested by counsel or the person in the federal treatment program. Establishes a national database which will incorporate the use of DNA evidence collection and DNA registry and tracking of convicted sex offenders with Global Positioning System technology. The law defines and requires a three-tier classification system for sex offenders, based on offense committed, replacing the older system based on risk of re-offence. Tier 1 sex offenders are required to register for 10–15 years; tier 2 for 25 years and tier 3 offenders must register for 25 years to life.42 USC 16915 Increases the mandatory minimum incarceration period of 25 years for kidnapping or maiming a child and 30 years for sex with a child younger than 12 or for sexually assaulting a child between 13 and 17 years old. Allows courts to expand definition of sex crimes requiring registration through broad residual clause. Increases the penalties for sex trafficking of children and child prostitution. Widens federal funding to assist local law enforcement in tracking sexual exploitation of minors on the internet. Creates a national child abuse/neglect registry to protect children from being placed into the care of or adopted by people convicted of child abuse or child neglect. Limits the defense access to examine child exploitation material which is the subject of a charge, such that examination may only be conducted in a government building.
Registration requirements Registration requirements are defined by the type of offense the person was convicted of. Sex offenders are classified into three tiers, with offenders in certain tiers having the option to ask for a registration reduction hearing to request their registration time be reduced after having a clean record for a prescribed minimum period, an offender's record is considered to be clean if they have met all of the following conditions: (A) not been convicted of a crime where the sentence was greater than one year in jail; (B) not been convicted of any sex offense; (C) successfully completed all supervised release, parole & probation requirements; (D) successfully completed a sex offender treatment program that has been certified by their state of residence or the Attorney General. Tier 3 offenders are required to register for life, with the exception of offenders adjudicated as a juvenile delinquent, who can request a registration reduction hearing if they have maintained a clean record for 25 years after release from juvenile detention. Tier 2 offenders are required to register for 25 years after release from incarceration. Tier 1 offenders are required to register for 15 years after release, they can request a registration reduction hearing after maintaining a clean record for 10 years. Tier I registrants may be excluded from internet database, with exemption of those convicted of "specified offense against a minor".
Sex offenders that are 14 years of age or older at the time of the crime are required to register if they fit into the most serious tier (Tier 3), or were tried as adults.
State registration requirements While states have to abide by the federal general guidelines for sex offender level registration requirements, the actual requirements can vary from state to state, with some being stricter and others more lenient.
For example in the state of New York, Level 1 offenders are required to register for 20 years after release, with no option to petition the court for a reduction, they must update their address with local law enforcement yearly and report in person every three years to have an updated photo taken. Level 2 offenders are required to register for life, though they can petition the courts to be removed from the registry after 30 years with a clean record; they must report in person yearly to update their address and have their photo updated every three years. Level 3 offenders must register for life, and must report in person every 90 days to update their address and have their photo updated every year. Offenders can also petition the court to have their risk level modified; a district attorney may also make this request. New York also has additional designations that can be added to offenders of each level, offenders can be designated as a sexual predator, a sexually violent predator, or a predicate sex offender; an offender designated as one of those is required to register for life regardless of their registry level.