Sixth Circuit, Doe v. Whitmer and Does v. Michigan State Police: Michigan's 2021 sex-offender registry law, ex post facto remand, due process and the Fourth Amendment

What happened

On November 13, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided two appeals about Michigan's Sex Offenders Registration Act as amended in 2021 ("SORA 2021"). The same panel (Judges Moore, Nalbandian and Mathis) heard both.

In Doe v. Whitmer (Nos. 25-1413/1414), a class action, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part and remanded. Judge Moore wrote the opinion, joined by Judge Mathis. Judge Nalbandian concurred in part and dissented in part.

In Does v. Michigan State Police (No. 25-1415), the court affirmed the dismissal of a Fourth Amendment claim. Judge Moore wrote for the panel, with no separate opinion.

What the opinions say

Ex post facto claims (vacated and remanded). The district court had held that applying SORA 2021 to people whose offenses came before the 2011 amendments violates the Ex Post Facto Clause. After oral argument, the Michigan Supreme Court decided People v. Smith (2026). The Sixth Circuit quotes that court's holding: SORA 2021 cannot "be retroactively applied to registrants whose criminal acts subjecting them to registration occurred before enactment of the 2011 SORA amendments." The Sixth Circuit did not reach the merits. Noting a Michigan State Police statement that it had "removed more than 20,000 offenders" from the registry, it described the facts as "a moving target." It sent Counts I and II back "for the district court to determine in the first instance whether Smith moots those claims," and vacated the related plea-agreement claim with them.

Offense-based tiers (affirmed for the State). Applying rational-basis review, the court held that "SORA 2021 rationally relates to recidivism reduction." It reasoned that the plaintiffs' data measured rearrest and reconviction, not reoffending. Even assuming a more searching form of rational-basis review applies, it held, "SORA 2021 meets it."

Petitions for removal (affirmed for the State). Tier I registrants may petition to come off the registry after ten years, but most tier II and III registrants cannot. The court rejected the equal-protection challenge to that difference. It quoted the district court: the legislature "could [have] reasonably conclude[d] that [those] who committed more serious crimes should be monitored for longer periods of time without the opportunity for removal."

People with convictions from other states (affirmed for the plaintiffs). The Michigan State Police decide whether an out-of-state offense is "substantially similar" to a Michigan offense, and which tier it falls in, without notice or a hearing. The majority held that misclassification "implicates liberty interests under the stigma-plus test." It held that a later lawsuit is not enough, because "nothing about the MSP's process is random or unauthorized." It concluded that "additional pre-deprivation procedures are required."

Vagueness (affirmed for the State). Reporting duties about students' travel, employers and vehicles were held not facially vague.

Fourth Amendment. In the companion case, the court held that "SORA's in-person-reporting requirements do not render the plaintiffs seized under the Fourth Amendment." It compared in-person reporting to a grand jury subpoena (United States v. Dionisio, 1973) and a court summons. The court said its holding has limits: it did not decide whether registry duties amount to a "continuous seizure," and it noted that other restrictions on liberty added to reporting "might be" a seizure.

The other side

Judge Nalbandian joined the opinion on the ex post facto, substantive due process, equal protection and vagueness claims. He dissented from the procedural due process holding. In his view, the district court "failed to identify what liberty interest, precisely, Michigan is depriving out-of-state offenders of—or when." He wrote that SORA 2021 is not the scheme the court considered in Hart v. Hillsdale County (2020), because it dropped the student safety zones and stopped publishing tier designations. He asked whether a person placed on the non-public registry, or placed in tier II instead of tier III, has the same interest. "A court cannot properly apply the Mathews balancing test without a clear view of what it is that it's balancing," he wrote, and he "would vacate and leave this issue to the district court and parties to consider on remand."

In the Fourth Amendment case, the plaintiffs argued that the threat of prosecution is a show of authority, so that "[n]o reasonable person would believe that they were free to ignore the requirement." The panel rejected that view unanimously.

Where it sits in the record

The opinions build on the Sixth Circuit's Does #1-5 v. Snyder (2016), which held that retroactive application of SORA 2011 violated the Ex Post Facto Clause. They also build on Willman v. Attorney General (2020), on federal registry reporting and the Fourth Amendment. On the same day, the Sixth Circuit also decided a separate appeal about Tennessee's registry law, Doe #1 v. Lee (No. 25-6122).