Feds seeking to lock up more people indefinitely

[zzzz]

The law was passed to keep people committed who were a real threat as sexual predators. Now the Justice Department is trying to expand the definition.

By law, the government can detain sex offenders after their prison sentences end if it can prove that they have a serious mental illness and have molested children or committed other "sexually violent" crimes. In court filings, government lawyers have argued that the law also applies to men who have been convicted of crimes that did not result in physical harm, including threatening phone calls and exhibitionism. If courts agree, those men could remain in federal prison until psychologists say they are safe to set free.

Now these people do have problems but there is a trend here that is disturbing. As with any law some people try to throw a wider net and that is always the danger. When I see laws like this I always wonder whether it is a precursor for further laws or interpretations which will eventually try to eliminate the discourse of intellectual discussions or opinions. They could even say you are a sexual predator for whistling at a women walking down the streets or even looking at one lustily and off you go to being committed and labeled for life. granted that is a stretch but laws have been stretched before and will in the future.

That system is already under scrutiny. A USA TODAY investigation in March found that the department's effort to lock up accused predators has been beset by long delays and questionable medical determinations that kept dozens of men incarcerated for as long as five years even though they did not meet the requirements for detention.

Next month, Justice Department lawyers will ask an appeals court in Richmond, Va., to find that a man who made obscene telephone calls in which he threatened to rape and murder random women fits the definition of someone who committed "sexually violent" conduct.

Government lawyers have also asked a federal judge in North Carolina to find that a man who exposed himself to children in a supermarket met the law's definition of "child molestation."

In another case last month, the department convinced a federal judge that alcohol dependence and drug abuse are illnesses serious enough to justify civil commitment.

Indystar - Justice Dept. says predator law covers non-violent offenders

 

[George Costanza]

HUGE issue here. SVP's (Sexually Violent Preditors) can indeed be kept in custody indefinitely (i.e., for the rest of their lives) unless and until they are deemed to be "fit to be returned to society," based largely upon shrink reports. Our office has an SVP unit devoted entirely to representing such defendants in their "fitness" hearings/trials.

They are entitled to a jury trial on the ultimate issue, but how often do you think a jury is going to rule someone previously adjudged to be an SVP, fit or eligible to be returned to society?

These are not good times for those compelled by whatever demons possess them, to commit sex crimes.