The Cherokee Nation may tighten monitoring of sex offenders

The Cherokee Nation's tribal council will consider a resolution that would implement parts of the Adam Walsh Act. The act, which was signed into law in 2006, requires a sex offender registry, post-conviction supervision and notification to the community about certain sex offenders.

If the Cherokee Nation passes the legislation, it would go into effect 90 days later, giving offenders living on trust or allotment land time to register with the Marshal's Service.

The Adam Walsh Act gave tribes until July 27, 2007, to opt in to participate in an integrated, uniform registry system, and allowed states to register sex offenders living in Indian Country in cases where tribes did not opt in to the system.

Those tribes choosing to comply with the act have until July 2009 to create a sex offender registry that includes offender descriptions, photographs, fingerprints, criminal history and DNA samples, as well as notify the commmunity and create a Web site to make offender information available
to the public.

The tribe opted into the system last year, and the act before the general council is the implementation of the Adam Walsh requirements, said Becky Johnson, senior assistant attorney general for the Cherokee Nation.

Before the law, some sex offenders moved to reservations, onto land in trust or allotment land, which is outside of state jurisdiction, to avoid restrictive residency requirements and registration requirements imposed by the individual states, Johnson said.

"It's like a blackout in jurisdiction," Johnson said. "They were able to hide that way and were not registered anywhere. If a sex offender lives on the (trust, allotted or reservation) land now, they're not required to register."

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