The U.S. Supreme Court agreed this week to hear arguments over conflicts between state and federal court decisions regarding Washington's controversial sex-predator law.
The justices, granting an appeal by state officials, said they will review rapist Andre Brigham Young's fight over how Washington's Sexually Violent Predator Statute applies to him.
The nation's high court has already ruled that the law itself is constitutional, saying confinement as a sex predator does not violate the right to due process and is not double punishment for the same crime. The confinement, intended to protect society, is civil, not punitive, the court decided three years ago.
But Young, convicted of five rapes over 31 years, contends conditions at the state's Special Commitment Center are indeed punitive.
U.S. District Judge William Dwyer held the center in contempt in November for failing to comply with his order to improve conditions. Dwyer castigated the center for inadequate mental-health treatment, an oppressive environment and failing to follow through on previous court orders.
The center at McNeil Island, run by the state Department of Social and Health Services, indefinitely holds sex offenders deemed as high risk to reoffend after they have completed serving their prison sentences. Ruling in Young's case last May, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that he should have a chance to prove before a federal trial judge that his confinement is in fact punishment because he is being denied the -adequate care and individualized treatment- the state law calls for.
The panel ordered a federal trial judge to reconsider Young's case. But the state Supreme Court, ruling in a similar sex-predator case, refused to follow the 9th Circuit, said Bill Collins, an assistant state attorney general.
In seeking to derail the 9th Circuit decision, the state's lawyers told U.S. Supreme Court justices that the appeals court's ruling is unwarranted and -unworkable in practice.-
-The 9th Circuit decision casts serious doubt on our ability to civilly commit these dangerous sex predators,- Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire said yesterday. -Washington has been a leader in protecting the public from sexually violent predators, and we are going to fight to keep our communities safe.-
Bob Boruchowitz, head of the Defender's Association, said he's pleased the high court is considering the Young case.
-This is an opportunity to make clear that the state cannot put someone in prison and pretend that it's treatment,- Boruchowitz said. -It cannot be the case the state can be permitted to lock someone up and pretend it's treatment indefinitely. There must be a way for a person in that situation to assert their constitutional rights.-
The U.S. Supreme Court is closely divided on the sex-predator confinement law, upholding it three years ago on a 5-4 vote. Justice Anthony Kennedy voted with the majority but said in a separate opinion that if the law turned out to be a sham he would vote the other way, Boruchowitz said.
Arguments in the Young case will likely occur next fall, with a ruling expected in spring 2001.
