
DATE: Tuesday, June 24, 1997                TAG: 9706240286

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   79 lines

SUPREME COURT: SEX PREDATORS CAN BE HELD PAST TERMS SERVED

Sexual predators judged to be dangerous though not mentally ill can be locked up even after they finish their sentences, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The 5-4 ruling lets Kansas continue holding an admitted pedophile who has said the only sure way he could keep from abusing children again would be to die.

People like Leroy Hendricks can be held indefinitely if they are considered mentally abnormal and are likely to commit new crimes, the court said. There is no special legal significance to ``mentally ill,'' the court said, adding that states can use other terms to describe who can be confined against his will.

Such confinement, intended to protect society, does not violate the constitutional right to due process and is not double punishment for the same crime, the justices said.

Wendy McFarland, of the American Civil Liberties Union's Kansas and Western Missouri chapter, said, ``Anticipating crimes before they've been committed and penalizing them before they happen is a precedent that should frighten every American.''

But Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court majority, ``The Kansas Legislature has taken great care to confine only a narrow class of particularly dangerous individuals, and then only after meeting the strictest procedural standards.''

The judgment on such prisoners is made by a judge or jury.

``It means that we can continue to protect the public from the worst kind of criminals that are in our society,'' said Kansas Attorney General Carla Stovall. ``That's the criminals who repeatedly and repeatedly prey upon children.''

Five other states - Arizona, California, Minnesota, Washington and Wisconsin - have laws similar to the Kansas Sexually Violent Predator Act.

In the sexual predator case, Thomas wrote, ``A finding of dangerousness, standing alone, is ordinarily not a sufficient ground upon which to justify indefinite involuntary commitment.''

But, he said, the Kansas law ``links that finding to the existence of a `mental abnormality' or `personality disorder' that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the person to control his dangerous behavior.''

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the four dissenters, said the Kansas law amounts to additional punishment for Hendricks because the state did not provide treatment for him while he was in prison. The law cannot be applied retroactively to Hendricks, the justice added.

Breyer said Kansas could classify Hendricks as mentally ill and dangerous for civil commitment purposes. That section of his opinion was joined by two justices.

The Kansas law says sexual offenders who have completed their prison terms can be involuntarily committed if they suffer from a ``mental abnormality or personality disorder'' and are likely to commit sex crimes again.

In 1994, Kansas prosecutors invoked the law to stop Hendricks' release after 10 years in prison on his fifth sex-abuse conviction.

But the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the state law violated Hendricks' due-process rights because it allowed him to be committed without proof he is mentally ill.

The Supreme Court reversed. Thomas' opinion was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy.

Dissenting were Justices Breyer, John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. ILLUSTRATION: IN OTHER NEWS

As the court neared the end of its term, the justices also:

Ruled that public school teachers can offer remedial help at

church-run schools. The 5-4 decision overturned the high court's own

1985 ruling in a church-state case.

Said guards at privately run prisons do not have the same

immunity against lawsuits as sometimes is given to state prison

guards.

Ruled that provisions of a new federal law that limit most state

inmates' access to federal courts do not apply to inmates who had

federal appeals pending when it took effect. KEYWORDS: SEXUAL PREDATORS SEX OFFENDER SUPREME COURT

RULING DECISION