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US Supreme Court Upholds Indefinite Confinement
An anonymous reader points out the news that the US Supreme Court today upheld a law that allows the federal government to keep prison inmates behind bars beyond the end of their sentences, if officials determine they may be "sexually dangerous" in the future. The case involves one Graydon Comstock, who was certified as "dangerous" six days before his 37-month federal prison term for processing child pornography was to end. The vote was 7 to 2. Three of the justices who concurred with the decision raised an objection to the broadness of the language used in the majority opinion, written by Justice Kennedy.
Reading about this today, I found that the scope of this particular decision is less scary than I initially assumed -- it's limited to prisoners who meet a standard as being "sexually dangerous", so they're not just being held without due process. Apparently this applies to about 100 prisoners nationwide.
The trouble here is that we, as a society, have real trouble in applying common sense in our legal system. You start with an obvious good thing (keeping violent sex offenders behind bars) and it grows into something completely different -- consider the way the term "sex offender" has been distorted. Once you start allowing this sort of action, where's the protection that keeps it from growing into something else?
Are we going to start seeing 18 year-olds locked up forever because they had sex with a girl a few months younger than them? It sounds silly, but we already routinely label this a "sex offense". Will taking a drunken piss in an alley set you up for decades in prison? Again, common sense says that's ridiculous but again, it can already get you labeled as a sex offender.
Until we figure out a way to legislate in a way that applies some degree of common sense, this sort of thing just can't be allowed.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
My biggest problem is this: What other crimes can criminals commit deeming them too dangerous for society? What's the point of a fixed length sentence at all for individuals who are likely to be dangerous after release? What about murderers and/or serial rapists who show no remorse or signs of rehabilitation?
What about repeat domestic abusers?
Drunk drivers(have you seen recidivism rates?)?
What about repeat moving violators?
It's a slippery slope.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Canadian law, and I generally consider Canada to be a free society, has the possibility of indefinite detention if someone is found to be a dangerous offender, and likely to reoffend. It's not very often used, mostly in the most grievous murder and sexual assault cases.
Wikipedia has more information: Dangerous Offender
I agree with you in theory - that a custody meant to protect society at large should be distinguished from a punitive one. But we don't really agree that incarceration is meant to be punitive: we think it might be rehabilitative, or protective, as well. Prisons have become places that have slid back into pre-modern forms of punishment, meted out by other prisoners rather than by the state. Perhaps the anxiety about distinguishing between punitive and protective incarceration after conviction is about a reluctance to recognize that other prisoners are now effectively delegated by the state to punish each other.
There is a guy who's in prison for life with his 3rd strike being a shoplifting charge.
Furthermore, it has the effect of making life more dangerous for cops and the law-abiding. It turns people who are at risk of being busted for a third strike into caged animals. Someone who has just commited shoplifting and sees the store security coming after him is a lot more likely to shot or knife them, or anyone nearby in order to make his get away. A 2-striker who gets pulled over with a joint or even just a crack-pipe in his car is now a lot more likely to pull an OJ and try to make a break for it, endangering everybody else on the road with him.
The path to hell is paved with good intentions and the guys driving the paver are blind lead-foots.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The challenge to the civil commitment law was brought by five prisoners. The case of Graydon Comstock was typical. In November 2006, six days before Mr. Comstock was to have completed a 37-month sentence for receiving child pornography, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales certified that Mr. Comstock was a sexually dangerous person.
Last year, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., unanimously ruled that none of the powers granted to Congress in the Constitution empowered it to authorize such civil commitments. But the decision was stayed, and Mr. Comstock has remained confined in a federal prison.
A three year sentence (for looking at porn) becomes a sort of "indefinite detention" (still in federal prison!) by the fiat of a cabinet member with minimal judicial oversight, and a seven-justice "liberal" majority hands down a ruling more authoritarian than the (unanimous) Fourth Circuit. Shit.
Personally I find this ruling considerably more despicable and dangerous than the Alito-Scalia-Thomas dissent in the narrow Graham v. Florida ruling (majority: no JLWOP sentences, except for homicide). That dissent was extremely conservative, and perhaps Scalia and Thomas' definitions of "cruel" punishment are regressive and have not changed with the times, but even the majority didn't hand down some kind of progressive ultimatum. Now juvenile criminals--who didn't kill anyone--must be offered the chance of parole...eventually. In Comstock, on the other hand, a larger majority, led by "liberal" justices, gave the government the right to indefinitely imprison U.S. citizens (four of whom were perfectly, legally sane when they were convicted) on the grounds that any sex-crime conviction (even totally non-violent ones) is sufficient de facto evidence of mental illness (after conviction) for civil commitment. *Chirping of crickets*. Is this legal reasoning coming from a seven-justice majority of the Supreme Court, or from Comrade Breyer of the Politburo? Perhaps we could also charge the prisoners for their "treatment?"
The court observes that "Congress has long been involved in the delivery of mental health care to federal prisoners, and has provided for their civil commitment." I'm sure the plaintiffs appreciate the "mental health care" they are receiving in a federal penitentiary. This could become a gaping hole through which the fifth, sixth and eighth Amendments could plummet. You thought the commerce clause was abused? Now the government has necessary and proper powers to implement unconstitutional ones (though the court "assumed but did not decide" the constitutionality of the powers themselves, embracing a rather convenient opportunity to abandon "judicial activism," it seems).
I would take issue with the assertion that we are "ruled by the arbitrary will of an unelected few," however. An unelected few has failed to prevent the tyranny of the majority (by the hand of another unelected few), but the policies they endorsed are hardly unpopular. Some of the blame lies with the people. Eroding Miranda polls very well, too; ultimately the constitution can only limit the government if people believe that it does. Even the judiciary is ultimately appointed by an elected government. The notion that we are a nation of laws must itself be popular, because democracy (even the republican sort) is an inherently unstable mechanism.