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High Court to Consider Proof Needed to Keep Sex Predators After Jail Terms Expire

By Laurie Asseo
The Associated Press

April 2 — The Supreme Court agreed today to clarify what type of proof states need to justify locking criminals up as sexual predators after their prison term is over.

The court said it will hear Kansas' argument that it need not prove that a man was unable to control his dangerous behavior. The state contends it is enough to show that someone is dangerous and has a serious mental health problem.

In 1997, the justices ruled in an earlier Kansas case that states can keep sexually violent predators locked up after they finish serving their prison terms. The justices said the Kansas law, intended to protect society, required a finding of a "personality disorder that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the person to control his dangerous behavior."

The Kansas Supreme Court ruled last July that a lower court strayed from that standard in the case of Michael T. Crane.

Crane had been convicted of exposing himself to a tanning-salon attendant in 1993 and also pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual battery in an attack on a video store clerk.

Lack of Control?

The state sought to have Crane locked up as a sexually violent predator after he completed his prison sentence.

A state judge decided the state did not need to prove that Crane could not control his dangerous behavior. Instead, the judge told jurors to decide whether he suffered from a personality disorder that made him likely to engage in future acts of sexual violence.

The jury ruled against Crane, and the court ordered him confined in a state facility.

The Kansas Supreme Court ordered a new trial. Under the Supreme Court's 1997 ruling, people can be confined as sexual predators only upon proof that they cannot control their dangerous behavior, the state court said.

In the appeal acted on today, the state's lawyers said the ruling would improperly limit the number of sexual offenders who can be committed for treatment. The Supreme Court's 1997 ruling did not make lack of control a federal constitutional requirement, the appeal said.

Crane's lawyer said the Kansas court's ruling was correct.

The case is Kansas vs. Crane, 00-957.