U.S. Supreme Court Limited

Smith v. Doe

538 U.S. 84 (2003)

Alaska’s registry is civil regulation, not punishment, so it can apply to people convicted before the law existed.

Court
U.S. Supreme Court
Decided
March 5, 2003
Reach
Nationwide on the federal Ex Post Facto Clause. States may read their own constitutions differently.
Verified
September 30, 2026
Read the opinion All cases

Limited. Still controlling on the federal question, but courts have distinguished it when a state’s law goes well beyond Alaska’s 2003 scheme — see Does v. Snyder and the state split. Binds every court in the country on the federal question it decides.

What happened

Two men convicted of sex offenses before Alaska passed its registration law in 1994 argued that applying the law to them imposed new punishment for old crimes, in violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause.

What the court decided

By 6–3, the Court held that Alaska’s registration and internet notification scheme was a civil, regulatory measure. The legislature meant it to protect the public, and its effects were not so punitive as to override that intent. Because it was not punishment, it could apply retroactively.

Why it matters to the Registry

Nearly every registration law leans on this case. As long as registration is framed and operated as regulation, federal courts have generally allowed it to reach people convicted before it was enacted — which is why registries can keep expanding to older convictions. Its two-step test, legislative intent and then punitive effect, is the framework every later case in this section applies.

What it did not decide

It judged Alaska’s law as it stood in 2003: registration and a public website, with no residency zones, in-person reporting or work bans. It did not decide that heavier schemes are also civil, and it says nothing about state constitutions — the Alaska Supreme Court later reached the opposite result on the same law under Alaska’s own constitution.

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