In the 2002 case of Delbert W. Smith and Bruce M. Botelho v. John Doe I et al., the U.S Supreme Court was asked to consider whether Alaska's sex offender registration statute violated the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits retroactive punishment for crimes committed before a law is enacted. The plaintiffs were convicted sex offenders who argued that being required to register as such under a law passed after their convictions constituted additional punishment beyond what they had been sentenced to at trial. The court ruled in favor of Smith and Botelho, upholding Alaska’s Sex Offender Registration Act (ASORA). It held that ASORA did not violate ex post facto laws because it was non-punitive in nature; its intent was public safety rather than retribution or deterrence against criminals already punished for their offenses. This decision set an important precedent regarding how far states can go in regulating individuals convicted of sexual offenses without violating constitutional protections against ex post facto laws.

In the dissenting opinion for Smith v. Doe, Justice Ginsburg argued that Alaska's Sex Offender Registration Act was punitive and therefore violated the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution. She pointed out that although the majority claimed it was a civil regulatory scheme, its effects were largely punitive in nature - causing significant harm to those it targeted without necessarily achieving its stated public safety goals. The law imposed severe restrictions on offenders' lives long after their sentences had been served, which she saw as punishment rather than regulation or prevention. Furthermore, she noted that many other states had similar laws but provided procedural protections not present in Alaska's version of the act. For these reasons, Justice Ginsburg concluded that this law went beyond what could be considered a non-punitive measure.