USATODAY.com - Albuquerque's targeting of sex offenders challenged

Since arriving in Albuquerque last October, convicted rapist and child sex offender David Siebers has been punched in the eye, burned out of his trailer home, trailed by police and picketed by prospective neighbors.

In April, Chavez and a unanimous City Council approved an ordinance that could drive Siebers out of town and make it difficult for other released sex offenders to live in New Mexico's largest city.

The ordinance would prevent released sex offenders from living or owning property near schools, would inform employers and prospective employers of their status, and would require them to leave DNA samples and dental and shoe imprints with city police. Their pictures and descriptions of their crimes would be posted at the Albuquerque zoo and other places where children gather.

The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the ordinance, saying that it tramples on individual liberties. The ACLU's challenge is scheduled to be heard in state court June 13. The ordinance won't become law before then.

"It may strike some as harsh, but that's not my concern," says Chavez, a Democrat and father of two. "This guy Siebers has 'Danger: Will re-offend' virtually stamped on his forehead. Our job is to protect citizens, especially children, and if we can't use the law to do that, what are we doing here?"

Over the past two decades, the number of people imprisoned for sex offenses has risen an average of 7% a year, the Justice Department says. Since the mid-1990s, all 50 states and the federal government have had laws requiring released sex offenders to register and to permit their names and photos to be publicized. Since states began requiring registration, more than 450,000 have been registered. (Related story: Laws tighten on sex offenders)

In 1996, Alabama took the idea of registration further and passed a law that says sex offenders cannot work or live within 2,000 feet of a school or day care facility. In the past three years, six other states added provisions that prevent some former offenders from living within 500 feet to 2,000 feet of schools and playgrounds.

Crimes classified as sex offenses can range rape and child molestation to possessing pornography, but in adopting their laws, state legislators have focused on child molesters. Many child molesters suffer from mental disorders and tend to be repeat offenders, treatment professionals say.

But Gene Abel, an Atlanta psychiatrist who has studied more than 4,000 child molesters, says the new laws appear well-intentioned but are misdirected. "Only about 10% of child molesters molest children they don't know," he says. The laws "miss that point."

Albuquerque's ordinance goes further than the state laws in restricting activities. It requires released offenders to tell their landlords and employers they were sex offenders, according to Peter Simonson, director of the New Mexico ACLU.

It also requires city contractors whose employees may be alone with a child to check employment records against the registry of released sex offenders. Violations could be punished with $500 fines and 90 days in jail.

"Nothing like this has ever been challenged in (a New Mexico) court before, because nothing like this has been seen before," Simonson says. "This is all new ground."

Siebers, 46, had no intention of becoming a test case when he moved to Albuquerque, says John Furlong, a West Trenton, N.J. lawyer for his family.

After 19 years in a Michigan prison, Siebers was looking instead for a place where he was not known and where he could work on "recovery" from sexual urges that had caused him to rape three adult women and to attempt to lure a 10-year-old girl into his car, Furlong says. He makes a living doing chores and farm work.

Instead, Siebers was greeted by stories in local newspapers that had been alerted by authorities in Ohio and Kentucky, where Siebers had already been discouraged from settling down.

Since arriving in the Albuquerque area, he has moved at least four times, once after his trailer was burned while he was not at home. In a rural community south of town, a neighbor blackened one of Siebers' eyes after his past became known. In northeast Albuquerque, a family that offered to take Siebers in was picketed by neighbors. Police continue to track his whereabouts and make weekly reports to the mayor.

In March, Assistant City Attorney Greg Wheeler drafted a ordinance designed to cover Siebers and about 500 released sex offenders in Albuquerque who have registered under New Mexico law. He took the idea of a "child safety zone" — Albuquerque's would be 1,000 feet — from other states' laws. "The idea is as much public disclosure as possible," Wheeler says. "And to let sex offenders know we have a good idea where they are and what they're doing."

The ACLU argues in court papers that Albuquerque's ordinance violates 11 parts of the New Mexico Constitution, including guarantees of property rights, freedom of movement and of association, and guarantees against self-incrimination and being penalized twice for the same crime.

Chavez, a lawyer, says he has some sympathy with those who protest the proposed law. But "this is a clear and present danger. What would (the law's critics) do if it was up to them? Nothing?"