Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe
The Supreme Court ruled that Connecticut did not violate a sex offender's due process rights by publishing his information on the state's online registry without first holding a hearing on whether he was currently dangerous.
Because Connecticut's registry law is triggered by a person's conviction alone — not by any finding of present danger — a hearing on dangerousness would not change anything, so the Constitution did not require one.
“We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals because due process does not require the opportunity to prove a fact that is not material to the State's statutory scheme.”
The Court's core holding that a hearing was not required because dangerousness was irrelevant to the registry law.
How it got here: A federal trial court granted summary judgment for the sex offender, certified a class, and enjoined the registry's public disclosure; the Second Circuit affirmed, and Connecticut sought Supreme Court review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Connecticut's "Megan's Law" requires people convicted of sexual offenses to register with the state and appear on a public, online sex offender registry listing their name, address, and photo. A convicted sex offender sued on behalf of a class, arguing that being listed implied he was currently dangerous and that due process entitled him to a hearing to prove otherwise before being publicly listed.
The question before the Court
Before posting a sex offender's information on a public online registry, does the Constitution require Connecticut to give him a hearing on whether he is currently dangerous?
The Court's answer
No — the Constitution did not require Connecticut to hold a hearing on whether the sex offender was currently dangerous before listing him on its public online registry. The Court explained that due process only entitles someone to a hearing on facts that actually matter under the government's rule. Connecticut's registry law is triggered solely by the fact of a qualifying conviction, and the state expressly does not claim to have determined that any listed person is currently dangerous.
Because current dangerousness plays no role in whether someone must be listed, giving the offender a hearing to prove he wasn't dangerous would not have changed anything — it would have been, in the Court's words, "a bootless exercise." The Court left open whether the law could be challenged on other grounds, such as substantive due process, since the offender had not raised that claim.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
The decision let Connecticut, and by extension other states with similar Megan's Law registries, continue posting conviction-based sex offender information online without individualized dangerousness hearings. It clarified that registered offenders challenging these laws must frame their objections as substantive due process or other constitutional claims, not as a demand for a hearing on facts the law does not care about.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision reversing the Second Circuit, so Connecticut's public sex offender registry could resume operating without individualized dangerousness hearings. The ruling left open the possibility that registered offenders could still challenge such registries under substantive due process or equal protection theories, as two concurring opinions specifically flagged, but those claims were not before the Court and remain untested by this decision.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly did not decide whether Connecticut's registry law violates substantive due process, since the offender disavowed that theory and pressed only a procedural due process claim. The concurrences separately noted that substantive due process and equal protection challenges to the law remained open for future cases.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Scalia
Justice Scalia agreed with the majority but added that even if the registry law affects a liberty interest, a validly enacted statute that categorically eliminates that interest for everyone in a class provides all the process that is due. He compared it to a law barring anyone under 16 from driving: no individual hearing is needed unless a fundamental right is at stake.
Concurrence — Justice Souter
Justice Souter, joined by Justice Ginsburg, agreed with the majority but stressed that today's ruling leaves open both a substantive due process challenge and an equal protection challenge. He pointed out that Connecticut lets courts exempt some offenders from registration or restrict disclosure, which undercuts any claim that courts cannot assess individual dangerousness, and suggested the line between who can seek such relief and who cannot may be vulnerable to an equal protection challenge.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court assumed, without deciding, that being listed on the registry affected a protected liberty interest, since it could resolve the case without settling that question.
- It then applied the basic due process rule that a hearing is only required to prove or disprove a fact that actually matters to the government's rule — if the fact is legally irrelevant, no hearing is owed.
- The Court compared this case to earlier rulings requiring hearings, noting that in those cases the disputed fact was concededly relevant to the government's decision, unlike here.
- Examining Connecticut's statute, the Court found the registry requirement is triggered solely by the fact of a qualifying conviction, and the law and the registry's own disclaimer make clear that no individual dangerousness determination is made or needed.
- Because whether an offender is currently dangerous plays no role in Connecticut's scheme, a hearing on that question would not change the outcome, so due process did not require one.
- The Court noted the offender was not raising a substantive due process challenge to the law itself, only a procedural one, so it expressed no view on whether the registry law could be attacked on substantive grounds.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Wisconsin v. Constantineau (400 U.S. 433)
Unlike that case, the fact the offender wanted a hearing on was not relevant to Connecticut's registry rule.
Distinguishes Goss v. Lopez (419 U.S. 565)
Distinguished because the disputed fact there was concededly relevant, unlike the dangerousness question here.