NY Sex Offenders: Mental Hospital Confinement OK?

RedGlitter · Post by **RedGlitter** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 5:15 am

November 22, 2006

Pataki Rebuked on Confining Sex Offenders

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

New York State’s highest court yesterday struck down the Pataki administration’s practice of confining sex offenders in psychiatric hospitals after their prison terms end and ordered immediate hearings to determine whether those being held should be released.

The 7-0 decision by the state Court of Appeals was a sharp rebuke to Gov. George E. Pataki, who last year ordered the confinement of 12 sex offenders after lawmakers failed to agree on legislation that would have explicitly permitted such detention.

In yesterday’s ruling, the court found that the state erred in using mental hygiene laws to confine the 12 men, 11 of whom are still held involuntarily at psychiatric hospitals in New York City. The men had legal protections as prisoners that entitled them to hearings before being ordered confined upon their release, the court found.

“These people were characterized as being free citizens. The fact is that they were prisoners, and were entitled to the protections built into the correction law before they can be sent from prison to a psychiatric hospital, said Stephen J. Harkavy of Mental Hygiene Legal Service, a state agency that represented the 12 men.

Reacting to the ruling, Governor Pataki, who is a possible candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, said he would call for a special session of the Legislature next week to push for legislation to allow for the civil confinement. The governor has made tougher treatment of recidivist sex offenders a signature law-enforcement issue, and he blamed Democrats in the State Assembly for stalling on the matter in years past.

In a statement, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver dismissed that criticism as “lies and mistruths. He noted that the Assembly, like the Republican-controlled State Senate, had passed civil confinement legislation in January, but that Senate Republicans had avoided reconvening a conference committee to work out differences in the two bills. Hinting that Mr. Pataki called for the session to bolster his presidential credentials, Mr. Silver said, “Instead of participating in another political road show aimed at misleading New Yorkers and garnering headlines, the governor and the Senate should work with the Assembly on tough, effective laws that crack down on sex predators.

The ruling plunges New York back into a volatile national debate over the treatment of sex offenders. Eighteen states — including four in the Northeast: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — have laws that allow the confinement of sex offenders after they are released from prison. The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that such programs do not constitute double jeopardy, and that the laws are legal as long as the state can prove the offender suffers from a mental abnormality that makes him “unable to control his dangerousness.

The men covered by yesterday’s ruling were serving sentences for a range of crimes; one was convicted of raping a 3-year-old boy, for example, another of sexually abusing three young girls. About 100 other men throughout the state were also transferred to civil confinement while the original case worked its way through the courts.

The new ruling, however, will not directly affect them. The law already permits them to challenge their confinement after they have been committed, and each of the plaintiffs is doing so. Advocates for the detainees say, though, that the order may hasten those hearings.

In yesterday’s ruling, Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, who was appointed by Mr. Pataki’s predecessor, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, wrote, “We do not propose that these petitioners be released, nor do we propose to trump the interests of public safety. Rather, we recognize that a need for continued hospitalization may well exist.

The decision reversed an earlier ruling by an appellate court, which had overturned a 2005 State Supreme Court ruling in favor of the 12 men.

In his statement yesterday, Mr. Pataki said he was “deeply disappointed by the high court’s ruling. Though his successor, Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer, also supports new civil-confinement legislation and said yesterday that he would push for it when he takes office next year, Mr. Pataki signaled that he wanted to make one more effort at passing the law on his own watch.

“I remain committed to do everything in my power as governor to keep these predators away from our children and away from society and have been working for years to give our mental health and criminal justice professionals the tools they need to protect our children and families from sexually violent predators, the governor said.

Mr. Pataki originally sought to have the 12 men confined in September 2005 under a novel interpretation of the state’s mental hygiene laws, which usually govern hospitalization of the noncriminal mentally ill. Later that year, Justice Jacqueline W. Silbermann of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan held that while it was reasonable for state officials to be concerned about the risks to the public should the men be released, state law required that court-appointed doctors examine the men to determine whether they met the requirements for civil confinement.

In upholding that initial decision, the court of appeals said that prison officials had ignored the corrections law governing such confinements, which is more restrictive than the mental hygiene laws under which the men were transferred to the psychiatric hospitals. The corrections law requires that court-appointed doctors determine whether an inmate is mentally ill and a formal court order to commit them involuntarily. It also allows the inmate to contest the order before a judge prior to being committed.

A spokesman for Mr. Pataki, David Catalfamo, said yesterday that the governor would continue to seek civil confinement for imprisoned sex offenders who are near release and deemed likely to commit crimes in the future. But he will do so under the corrections law, “with all attendant procedural requirements, said Mr. Catalfamo, rather than under the mental hygiene law.

Abby Goodnough contributed reporting.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company