High Court Upholds Sex Offender Law

[MechAg94]

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/05/17/high-court-upholds-sex-offender-law/

In a 7-2 ruling penned by Justice Stephen Breyer, the Supreme Court says a federal law passed by Congress to keep convicted sex offenders confined beyond the term of their prison sentences is Constitutional. The decision, however, does not foreclose the opportunity for the offenders from continuing to challenge their detention under other legal grounds.

Justice Breyer says there are sound reasons for the law adding that "The Federal Government, as custodian of its prisoners, has the constitutional power to act in order to protect nearby (and other) communities from the danger such prisoners may pose."

Monday's ruling falls under the Constitution's "Necessary and Proper" Clause which Breyer offers five points of justification for upholding the law. "Taken together, these considerations lead us to conclude that the statute is a 'necessary and proper' means of exercising the federal authority that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned, and to maintain the security of those who are not imprisoned but who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of others."

The ruling does not address claims that the law violates the offenders' rights under other Constitutional protections including the 14th Amendment's guarantee to equal protection and due process.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia dissent. They contend the law goes beyond the powers given the federal government by the Constitution. "To be sure, protecting society from violent sexual offenders is certainly an important end," Thomas writes but continues by saying "the Constitution does not vest in Congress the authority to protect society from every bad act that might befall it."

Solicitor General Elena Kagan, President Obama's selection to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the high court, argued and won the case on behalf of the government.

I thought some of you legal minded folks might help me understand this better.  The reasoning on this really seems to say that the Feds can just decide to keep you in prison if they decide you are a danger to the community.  I hope the actual decision has more detail.  Doesn't that seem like reasoning they could apply to any crime or prisoner other than sex offenders?  I didn't see anything on the sort of scrutiny this would require.

I guess I keep thinking that there has to be more to this.




On a side note:  Sometimes the paranoid side of me starts getting the idea that all the laws needed for a dictatorial govt to take over and suppress dissent are already on the books or close to it. The only thing needed is a sufficiently docile public.

[grampster]

Sometimes the SCOTUS makes a determination about a thing that is extremely narrow.  In this case, I hope it's that way and isolates sexual predators and nothing more than that.  I'm not sure of the rescidivism rate for sexual predators, but it's nearly universal iirc.

[MechAg94]

Even if it is universal, shouldn't that be changed at the sentencing level and not after the fact?

Didn't the SC also say we couldn't execute them in another case?

[PTK]

My ex-wife is a convicted sex offender. She was urinating in "public", side street, behind some bushes, couldn't hold it.


Yeah.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

its not the feds who throw away the key  thats up to a state court  the feds just cleared the way to let em.

[mtnbkr]

My ex-wife is a convicted sex offender. She was urinating in "public", side street, behind some bushes, couldn't hold it.


Yeah.

This subject came up on a radio talk show a year or so ago.  One guy called in to give his story.  He was a recent grad of a local university, had just earned an MBA, had fantastic grades, etc.  He was at a college party, had a bit too much to drink, and decided to take a leak in the bushes behind the house hosting the party.  He got busted and is now deemed a sex offender (details foggy). 

Now, when he applies for a job and the interviewer hears "sex offender", the discussion stops there.  He gets no chance to explain himself. 

Chris

[PTK]

It's extremely common, but trying to change the law results in being called a pedophile, rapist, etc., without people hearing WHAT part you want to change... :(

[Ned Hamford]

The only comforting narrowness is that it is only for Federal Prisoners that are already in custody.  The other key part of the statute is 'sexually dangerous.'  Seeing as the Feds don't go after folks flashing on the log rides under the terms I'm not going to be too worried unless they try and get away with a something more general, like just plain 'dangerous.'  But yup, terrifying legal concept that was just sanctioned by our highest court.

[MillCreek]

Minnesota and Washington were among the first states to start civil commitment of sex offenders after the prison sentences were served.  This has been upheld in the state and Federal courts. 

[PTK]

Seriously, does this not bother anyone else? If they belong in prison, they need to get longer sentences to begin with. If they don't get longer sentences, they don't belong in prison any longer.

[Ned Hamford]

Seriously, does this not bother anyone else?

Yes, it is quite frightening.  The high courts, our supposed bastions of justice, gave it the ok.  It will take a public upwelling to fix.  I don't see that happening.  If it is tried with a more general category of crimes, perhaps it might be corrected.  But otherwise, meh.  Justice is a platonic ideal, not what we get in reality.

[RaspberrySurprise]

Seriously, does this not bother anyone else? If they belong in prison, they need to get longer sentences to begin with. If they don't get longer sentences, they don't belong in prison any longer.

I think downright terrified on several levels fits.

[PTK]

Yeah...

"Well, you've served your time, you're free to stay imprisoned because one, we don't like you, two, we don't like your crime, and three, no one will object. Have fun getting raped, another thing no one cares about because they think you deserve it since you're in prison."

[De Selby]

It's a lot less radical than it looks.

Think about mental illness - if you're judged to be dangerously insane, a court can order you confined to a mental institution indefinitely for treatment.  This is an application of the same principle to sex offenders.

The reason it looks hokey is because no one wants to call sex offenders mentally ill.  That conjures up all sorts of unpopular images of having an easy life pretending to be nuts, laughing at the system, etc.  But that's actually what it is in many cases, and that's why it really isn't so scary that the government is doing this to sex offenders.  They do it to the mentally ill all the time.

[kgbsquirrel]

The only comforting narrowness is that it is only for Federal Prisoners that are already in custody.  ....  But yup, terrifying legal concept that was just sanctioned by our highest court.

I'm not sure I agree even it's comforting at even that point, because if this law was passed after those people were incarcerated it would seem to violate Ex Post Facto.  And yes, this is indeed terrifying.  Adding to a person's sentence after they have already served it, deciding that they "need to stay locked up," is arbitrary and capricious. Where is the due process here? This seems to be another case of emotionally induced blindness to the equally applied  rule of law.

Locking them up in a mental institution immediately after their prison term ends is no better. Why? It implies they are subject to an illness beyond their control, hence why were they sent to prison instead in the first place? If true, they should have been in the mental institution from the start for treatment of their mental illness. Being found mentally competent and guilty for one's actions in a criminal court, sentenced, and then after having served out that sentence being confined against one's will to a mental institution is nothing more than unlawful detention under the guise of medical practice "for the public good."

For an exercise try going back and reading that again, except this time replace "sex offender" with say, "thief," "violent offender," or my personal favorite, "political dissident."

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

we used to sentence folks to the hotel silly "till they were cured" we stopped that cause the docs too often believed "there's no such thing as a bad bot" and released psychopaths to butcher again. how is this different?

[kgbsquirrel]

we used to sentence folks to the hotel silly "till they were cured" we stopped that cause the docs too often believed "there's no such thing as a bad bot" and released psychopaths to butcher again. how is this different?

Are you seriously unable to comprehend the difference? In your case a mentally incompetent (deranged) person is released from a mental institution while still deranged by an inept doctor. In this case that is occurring now, mentally competent people who have served out their justly appointed prison sentences are being confined beyond those the terms of those sentences by bureaucrats, either under the guise of mental health (mental institutions) or without any guise whatsoever (regular prison).

What if you, C&SD, were jailed for one of your past indiscretions, let's say an assault, and at the end of your sentence some government functionary came along and told you "well, you're just too dangerous to the good and law abiding folk, so we don't care what the judge said, you're staying in jail permanently." You had already been before the court, had a sentence handed down, and served that sentence, how would you react to that?

[De Selby]

kgbsquirrel has identified exactly the tension - to acknowledge that there are mental elements of these behaviours that operate beyond the control of the convicts leads most people to conclude that they shouldn't be held criminally responsible. 

The reality is that the criminal standard for "not guilty by reason of insanity" is so high in every jurisdiction that it is easily the worst defense on the books.  So lots of people who are truly insane get locked up, and then need mental health treatment because they can't even be dealt with in prisons.  It's common for people to be so nuts they aren't actually competent to stand trial, yet still "sane" enough to meet the burden of criminal responsibility.

The result now is that we have the double whammy - you get a conviction under the legal standards that determine pretty much everyone to be sane enough for criminal responsibility.  But then there's a class of people that have to be dealt with by the mental health/civil systems as well, because regardless of sentence, those folks remain unfit to live with the rest of us. 

[MechAg94]

The reason that the "insanity" defense has a high threshold is because the public got upset that too many criminals and their lawyers were trying to claim that.  The public forced the change in law to prevent dirt bags from getting out of punishment.  I have no problem with that.
I have the opposite view from what you stated.  If someone commits a crime while insane, I don't think they should be let off of the criminal punishment at all.  I would just allow the funny farm time to count against prison time assuming it wasn't a worse punishment.

That said, if someone is insane and their prison term is up, then I don't have problems with judicial steps to declare them incompetent or insane.  That at least involves some due process. 

What I really don't like about this law is the seeming precedent it sets for other crimes.  On the surface, it seems the same arguments could be made to keep any "dangerous" criminal incarcerated indefinitely.  That bothers me.  I really hope there is more to this.

[MechAg94]

http://www.scotusblog.com/2008/06/death-penalty-barred-for-child-rape/
I managed to dig this up for a little while back. 

The case was Patrick Kennedy v. Louisiana (07-343).  The broad declaration that death sentences should be reserved “for crimes that take the life of the victim” will apply, the Court said, to crimes against individuals

So we can't kill the bastards, but they are okay with just locking them up indefinitely.  Does that seem inconsistent to anyone else?

[longeyes]

Criminalizing potentiality has never been part of our judicial system.  Do we want "experts" judging what we might do in terms of "dangerous?"  In this and other things we are medievalizing our culture.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Criminalizing potentiality has never been part of our judicial system.


not so  the potential for re-offending has often been a consideration  we at one time sentenced folks to institutions "till they were deemed safe"

[longeyes]

Yes, but that in and of itself is not a crime per se.  This is a dangerous precedent.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

we aren't adding a new crime here is a civil commitment that extends their removal from society if they are still a danger

[roo_ster]

Seriously, does this not bother anyone else? If they belong in prison, they need to get longer sentences to begin with. If they don't get longer sentences, they don't belong in prison any longer.

I am on board with all that.

It's a lot less radical than it looks.

Think about mental illness - if you're judged to be dangerously insane, a court can order you confined to a mental institution indefinitely for treatment.  This is an application of the same principle to sex offenders.

The reason it looks hokey is because no one wants to call sex offenders mentally ill.  That conjures up all sorts of unpopular images of having an easy life pretending to be nuts, laughing at the system, etc.  But that's actually what it is in many cases, and that's why it really isn't so scary that the government is doing this to sex offenders.  They do it to the mentally ill all the time.

I think it may be something a little different.  Many do not want to call a sex crime a mental illness because it places sexual practices more on a sliding scale from "Normal" to "Criminal/Insane" and many freaky folks wouldn't like being placed close to the "Criminal/Insane" side. 

Especially after the multi-version, multi-decade debacle that is the DSM-* is revised periodically to stay politically correct.