holding that Connecticut’s sex offender registry scheme, which was based upon previous convictions and did not provide hearings to determine current dangerousness, did not violate the federal Due Process Clause because “due process does not require the opportunity to prove a fact that is not material to the State’s statutory scheme”
How later courts described this case
- holding that Connecticut’s sex offender registry scheme, which was based upon previous convictions and did not provide hearings to determine current dangerousness, did not violate the federal Due Process Clause because “due process does not require the opportunity to prove a fact that is not material to the State’s statutory scheme”
- holding that procedural due process claims against sex offender registration laws that turn on the fact of an individual’s conviction for a particular offense are not cognizable because “convicted offender[s] ha[ve] already had a procedurally safeguarded opportunity to contest” the fact of their conviction
- holding that Connecticut's sex offender registry law does not violate procedural due process by not providing for a hearing on dangerousness because the registry is based on the conviction itself, which "a convicted offender has already had a procedurally safeguarded opportunity to contest"
- explaining that “[s]ex offenders are a serious threat in this Nation. The victims of sex assault are most often juveniles, and when convicted sex offenders reenter society, they are much more likely than any other type of offender to be re-arrested for a new rape or sexual assault.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Tony Ray Coleman v. Doug Dretke, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, 409 F.3d 665 (2005)
As the panel opinion noted, Doe is distinguishable.
The opinion
Justice Souter,
with whom Justice Ginsburg joins, concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion and agree with the observation that today’s holding does not foreclose a claim that Connecticut’s dissemination of registry information is actionable on a substantive due process principle. To the extent that libel might be at least a component of such a claim, our reference to Connecticut’s disclaimer, ante, at 5, would not stand in the way of a substantive due process plaintiff. I write separately only to note that a substantive due process claim may not be the only one still open to a test by those in the respondents’ situation.
Connecticut allows certain sex offenders the possibility of avoiding the registration and reporting obligations of the statute. A court may exempt a convict from registration altogether if his offense was unconsented sexual contact, Conn. Gen. Stat. §54-251 (c) (2001), or sexual intercourse with a minor aged between 13 and 16 while the offender was more than two years older than the minor, provided the offender was under age 19 at the time of the offense, §54-251(b). A court also has discretion to limit dissemination of an offender’s registration information to law enforcement purposes if necessary to protect the identity of a victim who is related to the offender or, in the case of a sexual assault, who is the offender’s spouse or cohabitor. §§ 54-255(a), (b). * *10 Whether the decision is to exempt an offender from registration or to restrict publication of registry information, it must rest on a finding that registration or public dissemination is not required for public safety. §§ 54-251(b), 54-255(a), (b). The State thus recognizes that some offenders within the sweep of the publication requirement are not dangerous to others in any way justifying special publicity on the Internet, and the legislative decision to make courts responsible for granting exemptions belies the State’s argument that courts are unequipped to separate offenders who warrant special publication from those who do not.
The line drawn by the legislature between offenders who are sensibly considered eligible to seek discretionary relief from the courts and those who are not is, like all legislative choices affecting individual rights, open to challenge under the Equal Protection Clause. See, e. g., 3 R. Rotunda & J. Nowak, Treatise on Constitutional Law § 17.6 (3d ed. 1999); L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 16-34 (2d ed. 1988). The refusal to allow even the possibility of relief to, say, a 19-year-old who has consensual intercourse with a minor aged 16 is therefore a reviewable legislative determination. Today’s case is no occasion to speak either to the possible merits of such a challenge or the standard of scrutiny that might be in order when considering it. I merely note that the Court’s rejection of respondents’ procedural due process claim does not immunize publication schemes like Connecticut’s from an equal protection challenge.
[For opinion of Justice Stevens concurring in the judgment, see post, p. 110.]
To mitigate the retroactive effects of the statute, offenders in these categories who were convicted between October 1,1988, and June 30,1999, were allowed to petition a court for restricted dissemination of registry information. §§ 54-255(c)(1)-(4). A similar petition was also available to any offender who became subject to registration by virtue of a conviction *10 prior to October 1, 1998, if he was not incarcerated for the offense, had not been subsequently convicted of a registrable offense, and had properly registered under the law. § 54-255(c)(5).