Sex crimes acted out against children are viewed rightfully by our society as some of the worse acts that can be committed. Publicity in the media about child victims of sex crimes and the public outcry to punish offenders has led to a response by lawmakers to enact a broad range of criminal statutes with very harsh sentencing for those convicted of these sex crimes.
Federal acts have resulted in a registration system for sex offenders as well as enhanced sentencing guidelines. The first standards for sex offender registration and notification in the United States was established in 1994 as the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Registration Act. Subsequent Acts have brought about state sex offender websites, national sex offender registry and database to track offenders (SORNA) and most recently the “Adam Walsh act of 2006”. The Adam Walsh Act revised the national standards of SORNA including making it a federal crime for failure to register, created a retroactive 3 tier system to categorize offenders for registration, authorizes random searches for sex offenders on supervised release, enhanced severity levels of certain crimes, increased imprisonment terms and other penalties, established a post conviction civil commitment procedure for federal sex offenders, and eliminated the statute of limitations for certain sex offenses committed against children.
Federal law enforcement has many tools at their disposal allowing federal prosecutors to pursue a broad range of sex offenses in a manner that some consider overly broad. This is evident by the many mainly unsuccessful constitutional challenges to parts of the Adam Walsh Act.
Fighting against sex crime charges is a big challenge but a challenge that the lawyers of Benjamin, Aaronson, Edinger & Patanzo are equipped to vigorously take on in your defense.