Smith v. Doe

Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84 (2003), was a court case in the United States which questioned the constitutionality of the Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act's retroactive requirements. Under the Act, any sex offender must register with the Department of Corrections or local law enforcement within one business day of entering the state. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that because the Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act is nonpunitive, its retroactive application does not violate the ex post facto clause.

According to Mary Devoy, "since 2003 every state took that ruling and ran with it as permission to restrict anything. Every state has piled on with residency restrictions, employment restriction, loitering restrictions, bans for parks, lakes, beaches, amusement parks, public fairs, golf courses, ski resorts, bowling alleys, movie theaters, museums, libraries, fast food establishments with play areas, graduation ceremonies in public arenas/theaters, bans in the ability to participate in Easter, Halloween or Christmas activities. Bans from all social media, mandates for home, vehicle, computer and phone searches at any time, mandates for displaying year round signs stating a sexual predator lives at the noted address, quarterly and annual registration fees in the hundreds of dollars, requiring the offender to print and mail residence notification postcards within a certain radius of their home, statutes that are left open for interpretation like loitering 'where children congregate' which could be ANYWHERE and the list goes on and on and on."

External links

• 'Frightening and High': The Frightening Sloppiness of the High Court's Sex Crime Statistics