U.S. Supreme Court Good law

Connecticut Dept. of Public Safety v. Doe

538 U.S. 1 (2003)

A registry based only on a conviction does not require a hearing on whether the person is dangerous today.

Court
U.S. Supreme Court
Decided
March 5, 2003
Reach
Nationwide on federal procedural due process
Verified
September 30, 2026
Read the opinion All cases

Good law. Still followed. Later cases may have narrowed it — see Scope. Binds every court in the country on the federal question it decides.

What happened

A Connecticut registrant argued that listing him on the public registry without a hearing on whether he was currently dangerous violated procedural due process.

What the court decided

The Court unanimously held that no such hearing is required. Connecticut’s registry turned only on the fact of conviction, which the person already had a full chance to contest in the criminal case. A hearing on current dangerousness would be pointless because dangerousness was not what the law turned on.

Why it matters to the Registry

Decided the same day as Smith v. Doe, it closed off a second major line of challenge: a registrant generally cannot demand an individual risk hearing just because the offense is old or the person has changed. States that do tier by assessed risk may owe more process, because then risk is what the law turns on.

What it did not decide

The Court expressly left open a substantive due process challenge — whether the registry itself violates a fundamental right — which the respondent had not raised. It also did not decide what process is due in risk-based systems.

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These are plain-language summaries of court decisions, written for general education. A ruling binds only the courts beneath the court that issued it, later decisions and new laws can change what it means, and how it applies to any one person depends on facts a summary cannot capture. Read the opinion itself, and talk to a lawyer licensed in your state before relying on any case. This page is not legal advice.