High court hears sex predator arguments

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — States should not have to prove that violent sexual offenders cannot control their behavior in order to keep them locked up after they complete their sentences, Kansas’ attorney general told the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Nineteen states — including Washington— have laws allowing authorities to confine people indefinitely as sexual predators. The attorney for a Kansas man in the current case appealed to the justices to set a precedent for future cases.

The court heard the case of Michael Crane, who went to prison in 1994 for sexually assaulting a video store clerk and exposing himself to a tanning salon attendant in a suburb of Kansas City. When Crane was about to be paroled in 1998, prosecutors went to court to have him committed to a state hospital.

A jury found Crane suffered from a personality disorder that made him likely to commit another sex crime and ordered him hospitalized. Crane won an appeal before the Kansas Supreme Court, which ruled that the jury needed to find not only that Crane was likely to reoffend but that he could not control his behavior.

Kansas Attorney General Carla Stovall argued Tuesday that such a requirement is too broad, because almost all sexual offenders have at least some control over their actions. The "cannot control" requirement could spare even mass murderers from civil confinement, she said.

"Ted Bundy is the best example of that; these are really serious individuals," Stovall said, using the notorious serial killer as an example of someone with mental problems who exercised a degree of control over his actions.

In an unusual twist, Crane’s attorney, John Donham, agreed that the "cannot control" standard applied by the Kansas Supreme Court is too broad. But he said it should be applied in his client’s case.

"For Mr. Crane, it was dead on, but to apply it to the larger group of people who could have additional problems is too limiting," Donham said after arguing the case.

Crane originally tried to use an insanity defense but was found competent to stand trial.

Supreme Court justices pressed both attorneys to say specifically how far the court should go in setting a standard for what proof states must offer.

"Is there some extra element beyond the mere probability of doing an act which society has called dangerous?" Justice David Souter asked.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor pointed out that the state’s own witnesses in the Crane case had testified that about 75 percent of the prison population has anti-social personality disorders. Applying that standard would mean all of them could be confined to a hospital once their criminal sentences were finished.

Stovall suggested that a greater percentage probably have anti-social personality traits, "but that’s different from a disorder."

Donham asked the justices to find some middle ground. Some of the medical terms involved are "pretty slippery," Donham said, and "This court can set a benchmark."

The court’s decision could affect more than 1,200 confined sex offenders in states with laws resembling Kansas’, which was enacted in 1994 after a rapist served his prison term, was released, then killed a college student named Stephanie Schmidt.