Supreme Court: Sex offenders can be held indefinitely

[Voyager]

Finally! Now we can keep those fucking pedos off the street!

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday 05-17-10 the federal government has the power to keep some sex offenders behind bars indefinitely after they have served their sentences if officials determine those inmates may prove "sexually dangerous" in the future.

"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," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the 7-2 majority.

At issue was the constitutionality of federal "civil commitment" for sex offenders who are nearing the end of their confinement or who are considered too mentally incompetent to stand trial.

The main plaintiff in the case, Graydon Comstock, was certified as dangerous six days before his 37-month federal prison term for processing child pornography was to end. Comstock and the others filing suit remain confined at Butner Federal Correctional Complex near Raleigh, North Carolina.

Three other inmates who filed suit served prison terms of three to eight years for offenses ranging from child pornography to sexual abuse of a minor. Another was charged with child sex abuse but was declared mentally incompetent to face trial.

All were set to be released nearly three years ago, but government appeals have blocked their freedom. The government says about 83 people are being held under the civil commitment program.

Corrections officials and prosecutors determined the men remained a risk for further sexually deviant behavior if freed. The inmates' attorneys maintain the continued imprisonment violates their constitutional right of due process and argue Congress overstepped its power by allowing inmates to be held for certain crimes that normally would fall under the jurisdiction of state courts.

The law in question is the 2006 Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which includes a provision allowing indefinite confinement of sex offenders. A federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, ruled lawmakers had overstepped their authority by passing it, prompting the current high court appeal.

"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," Breyer wrote.

Breyer equated the federal civil commitment law to Congress' long-standing authority to provide mental health care to prisoners in its custody, if they might prove dangerous, "whether sexually or otherwise."

In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said the federal government overstepped its bounds.

"Congress' power, however, is fixed by the Constitution," Thomas wrote. "It does not expand merely to suit the states' policy preferences, or to allow state officials to avoid difficult choices regarding the allocation of state funds." He was joined by Justice Antonin Scalia.

The case represented a victory for the federal government and the woman who argued the case on its behalf, Solicitor General Elena Kagan. President Obama nominated Kagan last week to serve on the Supreme Court.

The justices in April 2009 had blocked the imminent release of dozens of sex offenders who had served their federal sentences after the Obama administration claimed many of them remain "sexually dangerous." Chief Justice John Roberts ordered the men be kept in custody while the case worked its way to the high court.

Most violent sex offenses are handled at the state level, and at least 20 states run programs in which sexual predators are held indefinitely or until they are no longer considered dangerous. The federal government's civil commitment program is relatively new.

The Adam Walsh act was named after the son of John Walsh, host of TV's "America's Most Wanted."Adam Walsh was kidnapped and murdered by a suspected child molester in 1981.

The act also increased punishments for certain federal crimes against children and created a national registry for sex offenders. Those aspects of the bill were not being challenged in this case.

[steveo777]

In the city I grew up in we had this serial rapist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Coe

In 1981 Coe, a radio announcer by profession, gained regional renown when he was arrested as the suspect in up to 43 rapes[3] which had been perpetrated in Spokane between 1978 and 1981. Many of the rapes involved an extreme level of physical injury to the victims,[4][5][6] and the police suspected them to be the work of a single offender, who came to be dubbed the "South Hill rapist".

Coe was originally put on trial in 1981 for six counts of first degree rape and convicted on four of these. After the state Supreme Court overturned all these convictions, he was retried on all four counts for which he had been convicted, and was convicted on three. His appeal of the new convictions also made it all the way to the state Supreme Court, which in 1988 overturned two and upheld one. Both supreme court rulings were based in part on disapproval of the fact that some of the testimony against Coe came from victims who had been hypnotized before identifying him as their attacker.[7]

Until 1982, he was usually referred to as Fred Coe. On July 31, 1982, he legally changed his first name to Kevin.[1]

Three months after Kevin was convicted, his mother, Ruth Coe, was arrested for trying to solicit the murder or maiming of her son's prosecutor and judge. She was convicted the next year and served several months in jail.

Coe served the entire 25 years of the prison sentence for the remaining conviction. Although he became eligible to apply for parole in 1992, he never appeared at any parole hearings.[7] He completed his prison sentence on Sept. 8, 2006.

He was not released at the completion of his sentence because the State of Washington has been seeking to keep him confined indefinitely under a "civil commitment" statute which provides for indefinite confinement of a sex offender beyond the completion of their prison sentence provided they have been judicially declared a "sexually violent predator". Upon the completion of his prison sentence, the State transferred Coe to the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island, the facility to which it hopes to have him permanently committed.[8] On Dec. 22, 2007, a judge postponed the trial until September, 2008.[9]

To this day, the news media continue to refer to Kevin Coe as the South Hill Rapist even though after all his appeals only a single conviction was affirmed. While he awaits his civil commitment trial, Kevin Coe is under investigation for as many as 44 other sexual assaults in the South Hill Rapist series. A judge has ordered DNA samples to be taken from Coe.[10]

On October 15, 2008, the prosecution and defense rested their case in Coe's civil commitment trial and handed over the decision to the jurors. The next day on October 16, 2008 after several hours of deliberation, the jury decided that the prosecution has proven beyond reasonable doubt that Coe is a violent sexual predator. He will now be committed to McNeil Island indefinitely.

I think civil committment is the answer to keeping dangerous people off the streets, although I still don't understand how you can sentence someone to 25 years in prison, then not consider their sentence complete at the end of the term. I can just hear a judge's answer to this: I thought my sentence was only 25 years...now why is it more? Judge: I lied! haha

[Voyager]

I think civil committment is the answer to keeping dangerous people off the streets, although I still don't understand how you can sentence someone to 25 years in prison, then not consider their sentence complete at the end of the term. I can just hear a judge's answer to this: I thought my sentence was only 25 years...now why is it more? Judge: I lied! haha

If I was the judge I would tell him that the chances of you not being a pedophile after you get out of prison are about as good as you changing genders overnight without a sex change operation.

Pedos loose in society = child rapes. Let the pedos out, and the kids get raped. Because of that, I don't see the need to reason with the offender. Once he had sex with a child and violated their rights, he lost his rights as a free human.