Supreme Court OKs Sex Predators Confinement
The Associated Press
Jan 17 2001 3:05PM
WASHINGTON (AP) - Harsh conditions
or a lack of treatment behind bars do not justify
releasing a sexual predator a state considers too dangerous to society, the
Supreme
Court ruled Wednesday.
The court underscored its position
that states can lock up sex offenders after their
sentences are over, rejecting the appeal of a six-time rapist from Washington
State.
The 8-1 decision said Andre
Brigham Young is free to complain about his treatment in
court, and said the state has a duty to treat those it involuntarily holds.
“State courts, in addition
to federal courts, remain competent to adjudicate and remedy
challenges to civil confinement schemes arising under the federal Constitution,”
Justice
Sandra Day O’Connor wrote for the majority.
The ruling means Young, now
held more than a decade beyond his original sentence, will
remain in a maximum-security prison indefinitely.
“We are pleased the court
reached a conclusion that recognizes the Legislature’s right to
protect its citizens and also to provide appropriate treatment for sexual
predators,”
Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire said in a statement Wednesday.
Sixteen states have passed laws
allowing the jailing of sex offenders after their criminal
sentences expire. The Supreme Court previously approved the practice, reasoning
that it
differed little from the common state practice of involuntarily committing
the mentally ill
for treatment.
Young, convicted of six rapes
over a 31 - year period, challenged Washington state
officials’ decision to hold him after the last of his sentences was due
to expire in 1990. He
claimed the state is unconstitutionally punishing him through poor conditions
and the lack
of treatment at the island prison where he is held.
“The treatment goal of the statute is a sham,” his lawyers argued in court papers.
In a separate case, a federal
court held the state in contempt in 1999 for failing to comply
with an order to improve mental health treatment at the sex-offender facility.
Washington
State has been spending millions of dollars to improve conditions.
Young’s lawyer, Robert
Boruchowitz, had no immediate comment, but planned a news
conference later Wednesday. The case is a follow-up to the justices’
1997 ruling in a
Kansas case. In that 5-4 ruling, the court said that keeping sexually violent
predators
locked up, intended to protect society, is not punitive and therefore does
not amount to
double punishment for the same crime.
Washington State’s sexual
predator act served as a model for the Kansas statute upheld
by the Supreme Court. In 1990, on the day Young was to complete a prison term
for the
last of his convictions, state officials transferred him to a new “special
confinement
center” for sexually violent predators.
Young sued the state in 1994,
saying he was being denied the mental health or sex
offender treatment required under state law.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled for Young, saying he should have a chance to
prove to a federal judge that his continued confinement does amount to double
punishment.
The Supreme Court reversed the
appeals court ruling and sent the case back to the lower
courts. In this case, the majority started with the premise that Young’s
confinement was
like civil commitment of the mentally ill, and then looked at his claim that
conditions of
his confinement amount to punishment.
That kind of case-by-case analysis
of whether an individual prisoner’s confinement was
civil or punitive is “unworkable,” the court said.
“An act, found to be civil,
cannot be deemed punitive ‘as applied’ to a single individual,”
O’Connor wrote. Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia wrote concurring
opinions, with Justice David H. Souter joining Scalia’s concurrence.
Justice John Paul
Stevens wrote the lone dissent.
Stevens noted Young’s “detailed
allegations,” and said he ought to have the chance to air
his double jeopardy claim. “If proved, those allegations establish not
just that those
detained pursuant to the statute are treated like those imprisoned for violations
of
Washington’s criminal laws, but that, in many respects, they receive
significantly worse
treatment,” Stevens wrote.
