Medical regulators say they have an ethical duty, and some have a legal requirement, to alert law enforcement when a doctor may have committed a sex crime against an adult patient. But The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's examination of thousands of cases found that regulators failed to consistently live up to that responsibility. Instead, regulatory agencies, often dominated by physicians, can and do find reasons to avoid notifying police. The result is that some abusive doctors can continue practicing and harm other patients, and others are allowed to quietly retire, without a full investigation into whether they committed crimes that could mean jail time for those in other walks of life. Across the country, it is legal for medical panels to act as gatekeepers. Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia do not have laws requiring medical regulators to notify police or prosecutors about potential criminal acts against adults. Some states have decided reporting shouldn't be optional. In Delaware, it took a public outcry. State Rep. Helene Keeley and Sen. Patricia Blevins tried to get a mandatory reporting law passed after being tipped that doctors who committed heinous sex crimes were only being reprimanded. But Keeley said resistance from the Medical Society of Delaware killed the legislation. That changed after the arrest of pediatrician Earl Bradley, estimated to have assaulted as many as 1,000 young patients in Delaware and Pennsylvania.