TUCSON, Ariz. – The man who is accused of killing Isabel Celis was in federal prison for failing to register as a sex offender months before the girl disappeared.
Christopher Clements was convicted of sex crimes in Oregon in 1998.
Congress passed the Adam Walsh Act establishing the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act in 2006. SORNA requires sex offenders to register where they live and work.
The attorney general made SORNA retroactive on February 28, 2007, but the rule did not comply with the Administrative Procedure Act. That would have made SORNA apply to Clements’ 1998 case. The rule later complied with the APA, and it legally became retroactive on August 1, 2008.
Clements was indicted for failing to register as a sex offender in Arizona on February 15, 2008. That was after the AG made the rule, but it was before it became legally retroactive.
The court appointed John Kaufmann as Clements’ attorney in that case. He said he saw a reason to appeal almost immediately.
“The law was pretty clear,” Kaufmann said. “They have certain steps – A, B, C, D. They missed C. And he was entitled to relief.”
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Clements’ conviction, and the prosecution moved to dismiss the indictment. A federal judge granted the dismissal on March 22, 2012. Isabel Celis was reported missing on April 21, 2012.
Kaufmann does not represent Clements for the murder charges. He said he might represent him in the future if there is a conflict with the public defender’s office.
“I have not seen anything to indicate that there is DNA, fingerprints, anything that links him to either of the murders,” Kaufmann said.
Clements will be arraigned in Pima County on September 24th.