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The request follows a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says the state can require all sex offenders, even those who have finished their sentences, to register with authorities, and can post the offenders' pictures on the Internet.

But the state must go through a federal judge before putting those past offenders back online.

In light of the Supreme Court ruling, the state has filed paperwork in U.S. District Court this month asking Judge Russel Holland to reverse his injunction requiring the state to take pre-1994 offenders off its Web site until the appeals process is finished.

But defense attorney Darryl Thompson said Holland should wait until the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals considers other issues in the case sent back by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court rejected the argument of Thompson's clients, identified by lawsuit aliases as John Doe III and John Doe IV, who said the sex offender registry continues to punish them even though they have completed their sentences. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the state.

The state said putting all offenders back on the Web site as soon as possible is in the public interest, the Anchorage Daily News reported, citing court documents.

"The injunction has imposed hardship upon the citizens of Alaska by denying to them the protection afforded by enforcement of the sex offender registration law against convicted sex offenders living in the state who committed their sex offense before Aug. 10, 1994," wrote Kenneth Rosenstein, an assistant attorney general. "Those sex offenders number nearly 3,000 and constitute almost two-thirds of all convicted sex offenders in the state."

The idea behind sex offender registries is that the location of offenders should be publicly known and easily discovered because they are statistically likely to commit sex offenses again once released from jail.

But Thompson said there's no emergency and no valid reason for the state to rush an order to list the 3,000 sex offenders immediately.

The appeals court needs to finish its deliberations before Holland lifts the injunction, he said.

Holland has not said in court documents when he intends to rule on the case.