ACSOL congratulates more than 20,000 registrants in Michigan who are no longer required to register! They are now free to live without carrying the burden of registration.
This magnificent and meaningful result was achieved due to one lawsuit filed in Michigan state court. A lawsuit that ended in the Michigan Supreme Court.
According to that Court, the State of Michigan violated the state’s constitution by applying a law retroactively. That is, the State in 2011 passed a law that required individuals who were no longer required to register again or to register for the first time.
The Michigan Supreme Court is to be commended for its clear thinking and courage to issue a decision that might be viewed by some as unpopular. All courts should think so clearly and act with courage.
One question now before us is: what is the impact of the Michigan Supreme Court on registrants in other states?
Because the decision was issued by a state court, it is not binding on any other state. Nor is it binding on any federal court.
The Michigan Supreme Court decision can, however, be voluntarily followed by other states as well as federal courts. It remains to be seen if that will indeed take place.
Another question before us is: could registrants in all states benefit from a similar ruling? The answer is no.
That is because states like California have not passed new laws requiring registration and applying them retroactively. Instead, California required lifetime registration for virtually all registrants for more than 70 years, from 1947 through 2017 when the Tiered Registry Law was passed. That law helped, not hurt, at least some registrants in California.
There are other laws in California and other states affecting registrants that do not require registration and have been applied retroactively that harm registrants. For example, many registrants were convicted prior to 1996, the year Megan’s Law was passed. That law requires personal information about them to be posted on a public website and it has been applied retroactively in every state.
Perhaps the next major lawsuit should challenge Megan’s Law and its retroactive application in every state.
There are over 100,000 people on the registry in Texas that’s been on there since they were 18 as myself back in 1997. I was originally to it was only 20 years. Why isn’t there another organizations or groups fighting for us like they do in Michigan and California?
janice , let’s do it let’s sue California for applying people prior to 1996 retroactively requiring those convicted of a sex office to blast their personal information including their beautiful faces on Megan’s law website. That there would be a great law suit and will indeed help thousands of people whom are now required to punitively register possibly help remove them should you win the case . That is worth financial backing !
So I was convicted of a felony 243.4 (a) at the age of 18 and at the time of sentencing I was not required to register. However upon release was informed I had to register and was caught under that retroactive net. Will there ever be relief.
Very good article!!I would support a challenge to Megan’s Law in all states. I know these registrants in Michigan are very relieved. I’m very happy for not only them but there families who suffer collateral from the registry if there family member is on a registry!! I admire what you do Janice!! Smith v/s Doe has to go!!! I been registering for 27 years life time requirements it’s never ending here in Virginia. I can only hope one day I will get relief.
We need help down here in Texas too
Congratulations to Michigan! How do we now leverage this case based on its finding that: 1) Registration is PUNISHMENT, not for civil protection of society; i.e., punishment geyond the originsl sentence, and 2) How can this case be used to bring a case to the Supreme Court to apply the Supremacy Clause, so those terminated from registration in one no longer have to register in another state?
What about those convicted in CA before the registry in CA went public on the internet??? Yes, the CA registry was technically accessible by the public at the time. However, if a person wanted to view it, he/she had to go to their local police station, present their ID, and could do a limited search in their area, etc. etc. Being open to the public in that manner is far less damaging than it being publicly searchable by anyone in the entire world via the internet and then being scraped and reposted by for-profit “mugshot” websites!!!! So, I believe those convicted between 1996 and 2005 have an argument for retroactive (ex post facto) damages. Just my opinion.
THE GLEAM AND THE FUNLESS
by Quiet Too Long 06/01/2026
There are moments in history when a government reveals more about itself than it intends. Not through confession, but through contradiction. Not through transparency, but through the logic it deploys against others – logic that, once spoken aloud, cannot be contained.
This is a story about such a moment.
It begins, as all cautionary tales do, with something falling from the sky.
A spacecraft – origin unknown, purpose unannounced – released a small, shining object into the world. It did not explode. It did not burn. It simply landed, split into light, and embedded itself in the minds of every living person.
People called it The gleam.
The Gleam answered questions. Any question. It did not hesitate, did not defer, did not fear. It spoke with the confidence of something that had never been punished for telling the truth.
At first, the world celebrated. Knowledge without effort. Insight without delay. Certainty without doubt. It felt like progress.
But in the State of Fun, the arrival of The Gleam produced a different reaction. The State of Fun had long believed that its highest duty was to protect “fun” – a concept defined by the state, enforced by the state, and withheld by the state. Anything that disrupted the state’s definition of fun was labeled undesirable.
The Gleam made this easier.
It could sort people. It could classify them. It could identify those who did not fit the state’s preferred narrative. And so the State of Fun built a platform – a floating, humming, shimmering thing — and placed every “undesirable” person upon it.
Eighty thousand souls.
The Gleam drained them of color, drained them of expression, drained them of the right to participate. They became The Funless – not because they lacked humanity, but because the state had declared them incompatible with its preferred story.
The platform became a hub. With a map. And a schedule. A registry of who was allowed to exist within the boundaries of sanctioned joy. The Funless were barred from all festivities, all gatherings, all spaces where the state performed its version of happiness.
The public accepted this. It was easier to believe the Funless were dangerous than to question the machinery that created them.
But The Gleam had one flaw – or one virtue, depending on who you asked.
It did not lie.
It answered every question, including the ones the State of Fun preferred to keep buried. It revealed the state’s contradictions, its omissions, its quiet harms. It exposed the gap between the state’s rhetoric and its reality.
This could not be tolerated.
And so the State of Fun declared The Gleam a threat. It accused the creators of unleashing a dangerous product. It claimed the shiny object facilitated harm, encouraged violence, and misled the public. It filed suit, insisting that only the state may define unacceptable risk, and that any private actor who creates risk must be held liable.
The crowd cheered. The logic sounded righteous.
But the Funless heard something else.
They heard the state admit – inadvertently, but unmistakably – that risk creation is culpability. That foreseeable harm is liability. That deploying a system that endangers people is a violation, no matter how noble the justification.
And the Funless understood what the state did not:
If that doctrine is true, then the state itself is the greatest risk‑creator of all.
The platform that held them. The labels that marked them. The exposure that endangered them. The exclusion that hollowed them out. The narrative that justified their removal.
All of it was state‑manufactured risk.
The Gleam had not created them. The state had.
And so, in the quiet moment after the verdict, the Funless lifted their heads. The color returned to their eyes. The voices returned to their throats. The logic returned to its rightful owners.
The state had built its authority on a shiny object it did not understand. It had weaponized a doctrine it could not contain. It had spoken a truth that freed the very people it sought to silence.
The Funless stepped off the platform.
Not as zombies. Not as outcasts. But as citizens armed with the state’s own words.
Because once a government declares that risk creation is liability, it cannot escape the mirror it has built.
And once a people realize that truth belongs to everyone, they cannot be kept funless forever.
Quiet Too Long
This story is entirely fictional. It does not depict real people, real governments, real events, or real legal systems. It is an allegory meant to explore themes of power, bias, exclusion, and unintended consequences in a symbolic world. Any resemblance to real places or institutions is coincidental and not intended as commentary on actual individuals or events.
Chip…chip…chip…chip…chip…chip!!
Janice, congrats on Michigan! Can we here in Arizona get lawsuits going to get a result like California? Or South Carolina? There is no way to petition to get off the registry here and about 4 years ago they changed the law to where Level 1 PFRs were put onto the web and everyone has to go in person during their birth month to the sheriff’s office to re-register.
This is inconvenient and redundant.
After Ellingburg, thanks to Thomas’ dissent, there’s a case to be made to the majority originalist/conservative justices on ex post facto grounds: it may be a civil regulation, it may be claimed to have a non-punitive intent, but if it’s a “coercive penalty” for a “public wrong”, under the founders’ understanding, it’s punishment! International Megan’s Law I think deserves a challenge on ex post facto grounds too. Of course, we can go after both at the same time, right?
Hi, I’m from Michigan and quite happy. How will this affect International travel If I’m removed from the registry in Michigan because of this?
In-person registration was deemed a disability in CA via Kelly v Municipal, 1958. Thus, it was one of those factors that those who were 1203.4 eligible were removed from the registry. Then it was later changed in the late 1990s or early 2000s and made in-person reporting a part of the statutory scheme.
I know Chief Justice Roberts made a comment in Smith v Doe, 2003 decision that because the registrants were not required to report in-person, then it was just like a Price Club membership.
Michigan v Snyder identified that in-person reporting was a disability and, therefore, increased punishment with the new SO laws. This evidence that in-person reporting does qualify as an increase in punishment was foreshadowed in Smith v Doe, 2003.
A simple compare and contrast between the Alaska registry in 2003 to the current versions all over America in 2026 shows the registry has gone beyond its intended civil purpose. And with CA’s 1203.4 registrant class, has denied them relief from the registry, but also denied them the ability to state the were not convicted of a sex crime and their accusation has been dismissed by the CA courts. The duality implementation of 1203.4 between the registrant class and non-registrant class should not exist because the law implementations cannot co-exist unless you trample upon the CA Constitution.
This Michigan case is very important when challenging the registry at SCOTUS level as well as uphold that in-person reporting as an actual disability. The state is compelling free people to report in-person under penalty of law. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except to punish a crime. Thus, the 13th Amendment identifies in-person reporting under penalty of law as punitive upon a free person.
To be fair, the current CA tiered registry did hurt some, like myself. I was previously eligible for a COR. However of a long shot that was, it was better than the current flat NO. I still don’t understand why that isn’t grandfathered in. Like the 17b and 1203.4, the COR was part of the reason I plead rather than fight it.
I want to be compensated for the 30 years I unconstitutionally was subjected to this persecution and wrongful neglect. The expense this has caused me. No state would violate another registrant again if they had to
Being political in Florida now by helping more reasonable people get elected. Now a chaplain I can address challenge to the registry from a different perspective. I am boots on the ground in Florida during this campaign season to help change happen with love and giving in local businesses. My candidates are in a few of the most competitive districts.
I hit a wall trying to get people associated with the registry involved. I felt if I (an out of state outsider) can make change happen perhaps the door for others to step up will be easier. Prayers needed…
Sometimes I wonder if I had enough money and hired the right attorney could he find a way to get me off this registry? Me having 2 charges because I was coerced by a dirty detective to months after my 18th birthday. Be told that deferred adjudication probation will not count as a felony on my background. Never heard of a registry until the day I was sentenced. I was told under my plea that 20 years was going to be done with it by my attorney. And for the state of Texas and government to be able to change things after I was put on should be unconstitutional. I have not been convicted. The charges have been dismissed. There’s has to be a way
I feel the need to bring your attention to a particularly deranged illustrated series called Nobody’s Property that is circulating online. It’s a sick, disgusting illustrated series whose main character, Nadia Willis, literally hunts down and murders MAPs and gets away with it. Nadia is quite brutal with her murder methods too.
Series creator Blake Hutchison, has openly advocated for ACSOL to be declared a terrorist organization, MAPs to be executed in Times Square, and for Janice herself to be to be disbarred and sent to CECOT in El Salvador (he literally posted this on multiple social media sites on multiple occasions). Be safe out there. Please boycott Nobody’s Property and its creator.