''Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe'', 538 U.S. 1 (2003), was a

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case regarding the constitutionality of the

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

sex offender registration A sex offender registry is a system in various countries designed to allow government authorities to keep track of the activities of sex offenders, including those who have completed their criminal sentences. In some jurisdictions, registration i ...

requirement which required public disclosure of information on

sex offender A sex offender (sexual offender, sex abuser, or sexual abuser) is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crim ...

s after they had been released from incarceration..

Background

A state statute required

's Department of Public Safety (PDS) to collect information gathered from sex offenders who registered into a sex offender registry and publicize it on an

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wi ...

and to make the registry available to the

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...

in specific state offices, as Connecticut's version of

Megan's Law Megan's Law is the name for a federal law (and informal name for subsequent state laws) in the United States requiring law enforcement authorities to make information available to the public regarding registered sex offenders. Laws were creat ...

. The website contained the following disclaimer: John Doe, a convicted sex offender who was thereby subject to the law, filed suit in Federal court, claiming that the law violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. The District Court issued an injunction regarding the law's public disclosure provisions. The Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that such disclosure did indeed violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because registrants were not provided with a hearing prior to the public disclosure. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether the

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate ju ...

was correct in

enjoin An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in p ...

ing the public disclosure of Connecticut's

sex offender registry A sex offender registry is a system in various countries designed to allow government authorities to keep track of the activities of sex offenders, including those who have completed their criminal sentences. In some jurisdictions, registration i ...

Opinion of the Court

In a unanimous opinion, the Second Circuit Court's judgment was reversed on the basis that due process does not require the opportunity to prove a fact that is not material to the State's statutory scheme. Injury to reputation in itself, even if defamatory, does not constitute deprivation of liberty.

References

External links

* {{caselaw source , case = ''Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe'', {{Ussc, 538, 1, 2003, el=no , cornell =https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/01-1231.ZO.html , findlaw = https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/538/1.html , googlescholar = https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=567826472123975002 , justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/538/1/ , loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep538/usrep538001/usrep538001.pdf , oyez =https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/01-1231
Brief for the Unisted States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Petitioner

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080218051741/http://www.rcfp.org/news/documents/20020719conndpsvdo.html Amicus brief in Connecticut Dept. of Public Safety v. Doe - Urging the court to find that governmental dissemination of truthful information about a person does not trigger "due process" requirements. United States Supreme Court cases United States criminal due process case law Sex offender registration 2003 in United States case law United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court Sex offender registries in the United States

Background

Opinion of the Court

References

Further reading

External links