PORTLAND (AP) — Fifteen people challenging the constitutionality of the retroactive nature of Maine’s sex offender registry have gone before the state’s highest court.

A lawyer for most of the men listed as John Doe in court papers told the Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday they were required to register long after they had served time and gone years without any new offenses.

He says they weren’t given hearings or allowed to argue that they were no longer dangerous. He said some of them went decades with no new offenses.

The Portland Press Herald reports that the state argues that changes the Legislature made to the law in response to a 2009 Supreme Court decision resolved any problems with retroactive punishment.

The court did not immediately rule.

The case dates to 2006.