Opinion ID: 2095176
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: A. The District of Columbia Sex Offender Registration Act of 1999

Text: In 1994, Congress passed the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, 42 U.S.C. § 14071, to address the problem of recidivism by sex offenders. As subsequently amended, the Act required each state and the District of Columbia, as a condition of receiving certain federal funds, to establish a program of sex offender registration and community notification. In response to the Wetterling Act, the Council of the District of Columbia enacted the SORA of 1999. [1] The material registration and notification provisions of SORA, which we shall now describe, are comparable if not identical to those imposed by the sex offender registration laws enacted in numerous other jurisdictions, including those of Alaska and Connecticut that the Supreme Court recently upheld.