Court Opinion

ID: 9789323
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:34:17.479364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:21.554049
License: Public Domain

ROBINSON, Judge (specially concurring). {54} The City of Albuquerque has chosen to exercise its right to make its sex offender registration ordinance, ASORNA, so much more stringent than that of the State of New Mexico, SORNA, and any other municipality in New Mexico. Albuquerque has a right to do so. I have no sympathy for convicted sex offenders and, as far as I am concerned, that is all well and good. But what effect will ASORNA have? It will hopefully keep sex offenders away from schools where children play. It will make the identities and whereabouts of sex offenders more widely known and discoverable to the average citizen and certainly to the average parent who, in this dangerous society, worries constantly about the safety of his or her child every time the child is out of sight. {55} So, if the heat is on these sex offenders in Albuquerque, what will they do? They will leave Albuquerque and go to another city or town in New Mexico, which has no ordinance of its own and their life will be governed by the less restrictive and less stringent provisions of the State’s sex offender registration law, SORNA. My concern is that we will drive them out of Albuquerque and into smaller cities and towns in New Mexico where the police forces and local authorities do not have the resources to handie the burden of keeping track of these sex offenders and making sure that they do not violate SORNA. {56} One way that the smaller communities could alleviate this ominous problem is to pass their own ordinances duplicating the stringent provisions of Albuquerque’s sex offender law so that the sex offender would find no advantage in moving to a smaller town or city. But, alas, the State has preempted the field and after January 18, 2005, no new sex offender registration ordinance may be enacted by cities, counties, and local governments. Albuquerque’s ordinance predates the cut-off, so it may remain in force. See Opinion at page 4, line 20. {57} Thus, SORNA could be viewed as being in direct conflict with NMSA 1978, § 3-17-l(B) (1993), which states that communities may adopt ordinances “not inconsistent” with the laws of the state for the purpose of “providing for the safety, preserving the health, promoting the prosperity and improving the morals, order, comfort and convenience of the municipality and its inhabitants.” Id. {58} With these additions, I specially concur in this Opinion.