Ex Post Facto: Part 2 — What Are the Likely Effects on Those Affected?

What Michigan’s landmark 2026 sex offender registry ruling is likely to change—and what it will not

On September 9, 2026, the Michigan Supreme Court drew a constitutional line that had been blurred for years. Within days, the Michigan State Police removed more than 20,000 people from a registry that contained roughly 43,000 names. The immediate change was substantial, but its meaning is narrower than either celebration or alarm suggests.

The constitutional reset

In People v. Smith, the court held that Michigan could not impose registration burdens created or extended by the 2011 and 2021 laws on people whose registrable conduct occurred before July 1, 2011. The MSP has explained that affected individuals no longer have a Michigan duty to register, report, or verify, and that their information is being removed from both the public site and the law-enforcement registry database. The ruling leaves their underlying convictions in court files, criminal-history systems, police reports, and other justice records.

The likeliest outcome is not a crime wave

The most defensible prediction is that Michigan will not experience a broad surge in sexual offending because of this ruling. The people removed were not selected at random: their qualifying conduct occurred at least fifteen years ago, and in many cases much earlier. Age, time without a new offense, successful treatment, stable housing, employment, family support, and completion of supervision are more relevant to present risk than continued appearance on a public list. Some removed individuals will commit new crimes, just as some people who remain registered will, but an isolated offense would not establish that removal caused it.

For many removed individuals, the immediate effect may be improved reintegration. Ending public registration and technical reporting duties can reduce instability in housing, employment, and family life. Police may still value current identifying information during an investigation, but a large public registry is a weak measure of present risk, and its administrative demands can divert attention from higher-risk cases.

What removal changes in daily life

For someone who has completed prison, treatment, and probation or parole, removal can change ordinary routines that previously revolved around compliance. The person may no longer have to appear at a police post to verify information, report changes involving a home, job, vehicle, school enrollment, email address, or other covered information, or keep track of short reporting deadlines. Travel, an overnight stay, a move, or a change in work schedule may become less likely to carry the fear that a misunderstanding or late report will result in arrest for a technical violation. The practical gain is not merely convenience: it is the ability to plan daily life without a separate regulatory system attached to nearly every change in circumstances.

Housing and employment may become easier, although not automatically. A landlord or employer who relied on the public registry will no longer see a current Michigan listing, which may reduce immediate rejection, neighborhood pressure, or demands that the person leave a job or residence. Family members may also experience fewer unwanted contacts, fewer concerns that a home address will be circulated online, and greater freedom to share a household or participate in ordinary community activities. Removed individuals may find it easier to accept work that involves travel, irregular hours, or changing job sites, and to relocate closer to relatives, treatment providers, transportation, or better employment.

Removal does not provide a clean slate. The conviction may still appear in background checks, court records, news archives, search engines, and private databases, and it may continue to affect licensing, immigration, custody, employment, housing, and other eligibility decisions. People may also face continuing stigma from neighbors or coworkers, while copied registry pages can remain online until private vendors update or delete them. Removal ends Michigan’s registry duties and public listing, not every legal, digital, or social consequence of the conviction.

Employment after removal: verify the source of any restriction

A person removed from SORA because of pre-2011 conduct does not necessarily need to avoid every occupation that was once restricted by registry law. Michigan eliminated the former rule barring registered individuals from living, working, or loitering within 1,000 feet of school property when the 2021 amendments took effect. That former school-safety-zone employment restriction therefore is not a current SORA crime, even apart from the later constitutional ruling. Removal from the registry also means that a job restriction written to apply only to a person who is presently required to register may no longer reach an otherwise covered individual. The wording and effective status of the particular law still must be checked rather than assumed.

Removal from SORA does not override employment or licensing laws based on the conviction itself. Schools, childcare providers, healthcare facilities, transportation services, professional licensing boards, and other regulated employers may require background checks or disqualify applicants for specified convictions regardless of registry status. Michigan’s childcare law, for example, addresses conviction-based eligibility separately from registration, and employers may apply lawful screening policies using criminal records that remain available after a SORA entry disappears.

The safest approach is targeted verification rather than permanent self-exclusion. Before accepting a sensitive position—particularly one involving unsupervised access to minors, vulnerable people, secure facilities, or a licensed occupation—the applicant should obtain the governing statute or rule, a written eligibility determination from the employer or licensing agency, and, while on parole, written approval from the parole agent if the order restricts employment, locations, or contact. A parole condition remains enforceable until it is amended or removed in writing, even when the same conduct is no longer prohibited by SORA. Conversely, avoiding an entire occupation solely because it was covered by the repealed school-zone provision may unnecessarily surrender lawful opportunities. The exact conviction, job duties, licensing law, and parole order should be reviewed before work begins where violation could carry criminal or supervision consequences.

People still imprisoned for pre-2011 conduct

The ruling also matters to people serving long prison sentences for registration-triggering conduct committed before July 1, 2011, even if they have never reached parole. The controlling date is the date of the conduct, not the date of release. Accordingly, when an otherwise covered person is released, the state should not impose the 2021 SORA’s registration, reporting, verification, or public-listing requirements solely because of that pre-2011 Michigan offense. The decision does not shorten the prison sentence, establish parole eligibility, guarantee release, erase the conviction, or prevent the Parole Board from considering the offense, institutional record, treatment progress, release plan, and current risk under ordinary parole law.

The MDOC and the Parole Board nevertheless retain authority to impose written, individualized conditions during the lawful parole term. Depending on the person’s assessed risks and needs, those conditions may include treatment, limits on contact with specified people, approved housing or employment, travel permission, internet or device monitoring, electronic monitoring when authorized, and restrictions involving particular places or activities. Michigan law requires parole conditions to be individualized and directed to supervision, risk reduction, rehabilitation, and public protection; the administrative rule also requires a reasonable relationship to the person’s prior conduct and present capabilities and sufficient specificity to guide behavior.

MDOC and the Parole Board cannot recreate SORA through a parole order. When no valid statutory registration duty exists, a covered person should not be required to register, verify information with police, or remain in a registry database. Individual restrictions may still be lawful if they are authorized, clearly written, reasonably related to the person, and limited to the parole term. Blanket conditions that copy SORA, or conditions that are vague, overbroad, unrelated to current circumstances, or designed to evade the ruling, may be challenged. Because implementation is new, later administrative decisions and litigation will likely define the boundary between lawful supervision and an unconstitutional substitute for SORA.

Police do not lose the conviction

Removal from SORA is not expungement: law enforcement retains access to criminal-history records, court files, warrants, police reports, and national databases. Separately authorized probation or parole continues, and new allegations can be investigated normally. Only SORA-specific reporting, verification, public listing, and prosecution for noncompliance with duties that no longer apply come to an end.

The Larry Nassar Argument

Public-facing registries are justified as community-safety tools: they provide information about people who live, work, or attend school in the community so that residents and law enforcement can respond to an asserted present risk. A prosecutor in a mid-Michigan county recently brought up Larry Nassar, among others as individuals who committed particularly heinous crimes that in their opinion should not have been removed from SORA.  Larry Nassar is a convicted sex offender currently serving a 100-year prison sentence that insures that he will never be released.  The prosecutor said that the public expects the registry to provide a measure of protection and awareness which has been lost because of the Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling.  While there have been a few individuals that have committed high profile crimes due to the nature of the offenses that were delisted and some currently serving time will be released and not required to publicly register, is that sufficient grounds to ignore the ex post facto nature of the registry law in Michigan?

A person serving a life sentence—or a sentence that makes release realistically impossible—does not fit that rationale. Such a person is already confined, cannot move into a neighborhood, take a local job, or otherwise create the community-based risk that public notification is supposed to address. Making an incarcerated, high-profile conviction the centerpiece of the debate therefore distracts from the proper question: whether public disclosure is necessary and effective for people who are actually living in the community.

The irony is that Larry Nassar was convicted both of state and federal crimes and is currently serving a 60-year sentence in a federal correctional facility, out of state.  As a result, he was not registered under Michigan SORA because people convicted of a sex offense who do not live, work, attend school or sit in prison in Michigan have no duty to register here and would not show up on the public registry.

Invoking an infamous, permanently incarcerated person to defend continued public listing is thus a category error. It substitutes outrage over the underlying conviction for evidence that publication serves a current protective function. If removal from a public website is portrayed as making the public less safe even though the person remains securely imprisoned, the argument is no longer about notice, monitoring, or prevention; it is about preserving an additional public consequence because the person is considered deserving of it. That conflates public safety with punishment and, in the ex post facto context, risks proving the constitutional point: a measure described as regulatory may operate as an added penalty when it is defended for its stigma and symbolic severity rather than for a concrete, present-day safety benefit.

What the removals mean for families using the registry

The removal of more than 20,000 names makes the registry less complete as a record of people who have ever been convicted, but not necessarily less accurate as a list of those Michigan may still lawfully require to register. It now answers a narrower question: who is currently required to register under Michigan law? A missing name may reflect the constitutional limit on applying later requirements to pre-July 1, 2011 conduct—not a reversal of the conviction or an individualized finding of no present risk. Likewise, a listing does not establish that the person presents a greater current risk than everyone who was removed.

The smaller registry still provides current addresses and displayed offense information for people who remain legally subject to SORA, and Michigan continues to offer neighborhood email notifications. It does not include people who are no longer required to register, people who have never been detected or convicted, or conduct occurring away from a registered address or online. Because registry status reflects legal eligibility and offense classification rather than an individualized assessment of present risk, effectiveness should be judged by accuracy, investigative value, new-offense rates, and correction times—not by the number of names displayed. Errors and delays remain possible during the transition.

Families researching a specific known person can consult other official sources, although no single database replaces a map of everyone ever convicted. Michigan State Police’s ICHAT system provides name-based access to reportable Michigan felony and serious-misdemeanor records, subject to exclusions such as suppressed or set-aside records, juvenile matters, most warrants, federal and tribal cases, out-of-state records, and some local offenses. MiCOURT Case Search may show criminal cases, dispositions, and registers of actions, although older cases may require contacting the sentencing court or clerk. MDOC’s Offender Tracking Information System, or OTIS, provides information about people currently imprisoned, on parole, on MDOC probation, or recently discharged from supervision, but it is not a permanent historical database. Local police, prosecutors, and court clerks may identify available public records, while other states’ registries and the federal National Sex Offender Public Website may be relevant when another jurisdiction requires registration.

Private people-search, background-check, and copied-registry websites should be treated cautiously because they may contain stale records, mistaken identities, obsolete addresses, or information the state has removed, while still omitting relevant cases. Official criminal history and court sources are generally more reliable, although none is complete by itself. A registry search should therefore be only one part of a family-safety plan. Families can verify caregivers and organizations, check references, understand supervision and transportation practices, establish clear boundaries for adults who have access to children or vulnerable family members, and create an environment in which concerning conduct can be reported promptly. Immediate threats or suspected crimes should be reported to law enforcement; registry information should not be used for confrontation, harassment, or assumptions about an individual’s current behavior.

The next battle moves to the Legislature

The political response will probably be swift. Prosecutors, victims’ advocates, and some lawmakers will press for ways to restore monitoring or public notice. Any new proposal, however, must respect the line the court has drawn. Michigan cannot simply relabel the same retroactive burdens as “civil” and impose them again. A durable response would need to be prospective, individualized, and tied to demonstrable present risk rather than to offense labels alone. Attempts to recreate lifetime obligations for the pre-2011 group are likely to produce another round of constitutional litigation.

Implementation will also be imperfect. Michigan State Police warned that totals could change as records were reviewed, and at least one county prosecutor has already reported apparent mistaken removals. That makes a careful audit essential: people who remain legally obligated to register must be restored, while those covered by the ruling must not be subjected to continued demands. The state should publish clear correction procedures and regular aggregate reports so that errors do not become a substitute for evidence about the ruling itself.

Removal may not end the digital punishment

Private background-check companies and data brokers may continue displaying copied registry records after the state removes them, leaving affected people effectively listed in employment, housing, insurance, and commercial screening systems. The ruling therefore raises a separate policy question: should companies that profit from public records automatically remove obsolete registry information, disclose when a record was last verified, and provide a fast, free correction process?

A national test case for narrower registries

Michigan now becomes a real-world test of a proposition that registry policy has often avoided: public safety can be measured rather than assumed. Researchers should track new sex-offense arrests and convictions, technical-violation cases, housing and employment stability, victim reports, investigative outcomes, and administrative costs. Comparisons should account for age, offense type, treatment, supervision history, and time in the community. Without that discipline, supporters and critics will simply attribute every headline to the policy they already favored.

The ruling also strengthens a broader judicial trend. Courts have increasingly resisted automatic lifetime obligations, retroactive extensions, blanket social-media bans, and continuous monitoring imposed without individualized justification. The message is not that government lacks authority to manage genuine risk. It is that constitutional limits still apply after conviction, and that a regulatory label cannot indefinitely conceal punitive effects.

What happens next

The September 9^th decision will produce neither perfect safety nor sudden chaos. It creates a smaller registry and a clearer constitutional boundary while giving Michigan an opportunity to emphasize measures more directly connected to reducing harm: individualized risk assessment, effective treatment, focused supervision, stable housing and employment, and prompt investigation of new misconduct. The ruling should be judged over time through transparent evidence, not fear, slogans, or attempts to treat one future case as proof of a statewide trend.  In part 3 of this series, we will look at what can be done to address the 3^rd party apps that use the SORNA database and what you can do to correct them.

References

1. Michigan State Police Legal Update No. 172, explaining the effect of People v. Smith.
2. Michigan State Police official statement, September 11, 2026.
3. Michigan Public coverage of the ruling and its legal background.
4. Report on possible erroneous removals identified during implementation.
5. Michigan Compiled Laws § 791.236, governing parole orders, individualized conditions, supervision, amendment of conditions, and related requirements.
6. Michigan Administrative Code R. 791.7730, requiring parole conditions to be reasonably necessary, related to prior conduct and present capabilities, and sufficiently specific.
7. Michigan State Police 2021 SORA amendment notice, explaining that the former 1,000-foot school-property restrictions on residence, employment, and loitering were eliminated.
8. Michigan Compiled Laws § 722.115r, illustrating that childcare eligibility can depend independently on specified convictions as well as current registry status.
9. MLIVE.com, Prosecutor rails against ruling that delists Larry Nassar, other from sex offender registry. Sep. 30, 2026