Court Sets Limits for Sex Offenders
By Gina Holland, Associated Press Writer
Originally published by The Associated Press, January 23, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court made it harder Tuesday for states to keep sexual offenders locked up after their prison terms—requiring proof that an offender has a mental illness that causes serious difficulty with self control.
Rapists, child molesters and other sex criminals must be treated the same as other people singled out for involuntary commitment under the court's 7-2 decision.
The ruling was a defeat for states that use commitments to extend violent sex criminals' time locked away from the public because of concerns about repeat offenders. The court did not ban the commitments.
"On one hand, sick people can be kept off the streets. On the other hand, the average citizen doesn't need to worry about getting locked up for unpopular ideas,'' said Richard Samp, chief attorney for the Washington Legal Foundation.
More than 1,200 sex offenders are confined in nearly 20 states with laws resembling the 1994 Kansas statute at issue in this case, the court was told. It was unclear how the ruling may affect them.
John C. Donham, the attorney for Kansas sex offender Michael Crane, said that state and others with similar programs will have to change the way they handle such cases.
"They created a new subclass of people and felt that because of the nature of their crimes, that in and of itself was enough to justify hustling them off to a mental hospital without proving a serious mental illness,'' Donham said.
Kansas Attorney General Carla Stovall said she expects states to be able to produce the proof that the court's ruling requires.
"They absolutely have to have an abnormality that makes them likely to be sexual predators,'' Stovall said Tuesday.
Justices did not go as far as the Kansas Supreme Court, which held that states must prove that inmates totally lacked control.
"It is enough to say that there must be proof of serious difficulty in controlling behavior,'' Justice Stephen Breyer wrote.
Justices had upheld the Kansas sex predator law in 1997. The law allows the indefinite confinement of violent sex offenders beyond their prison terms if they suffer from mental abnormalities making them likely to commit similar crimes in the future.
Justices in 1997 did not consider offenders' ability to control their behavior.
The court's two most conservative members said the latest ruling guts the 1997 decision.
"Not only is the new law that the court announces today wrong, but the court's manner of promulgating it—snatching back from the state of Kansas a victory so recently awarded—cheapens the currency of our judgments,'' Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote in a dissent.
Crane had been convicted of sexually assaulting a video store clerk and exposing himself to a tanning salon attendant in a suburb of Kansas City. When he was about to be paroled, a jury determined that he should be committed to a state hospital.
The Supreme Court overturned the state court ruling. Justices sent Crane's case back to that court for reconsideration.
Crane's attorney said his client now has a job but still spends nights at a community prison center. He said Crane can control his behavior.
The states with laws like the Kansas statute are Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, the Supreme Court was told.
The attorneys general in Alabama, Delaware, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania also told the court that their states could be affected by the case.
The case is Kansas v. Crane, 00-957.
