Kansas - Civil Commitment

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State Civil Commitment Center: Larned State Hospital (Issac Ray Building) 1318 Kansas Hwy 264, Larned Kansas, 67550 Telephone: (620) 285-6249 Commitment Laws: Chapter 59 29a01 et seq. Federal Cases: This is where Civil Commitment originated and was declared constitutional. 2002-01-22: Kansas -v- Crane (US Supreme Court)(Civil Commitment Constitutional) (In upholding the constitutionality of the Kansas Sexually Violent Predator Act, this Court characterized a dangerous sexual offender's confinement as civil rather than criminal, Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U. S. 346, 369, and held that the confinement criterion embodied in the statute's words "mental abnormality or personality disorder" satisfied substantive due process, id., at 356, 360. Here, the Kansas District Court ordered the civil commitment of respondent Crane, a previously convicted sexual offender. In reversing, the State Supreme Court concluded that Hendricks requires a finding that the defendant cannot control his dangerous behavior--even if (as provided by Kansas law) problems of emotional, and not volitional, capacity prove the source of behavior warranting commitment. And the trial court had made no such finding. Held: Hendricks set forth no requirement of total or complete lack of control, but the Constitution does not permit commitment of the type of dangerous sexual offender considered in Hendricks without any lack-of-control determination. Hendricks referred to the Act as requiring an abnormality or disorder that makes it "difficult, if not impossible, for the [dangerous] person to control his dangerous behavior." Id., at 358 (emphasis added). The word "difficult" indicates that the lack of control was not absolute. Indeed, an absolutist approach is unworkable and would risk barring the civil commitment of highly dangerous persons suffering severe mental abnormalities. Yet a distinction between a dangerous sexual offender subject to civil commitment and "other dangerous persons who are perhaps more properly dealt with exclusively through criminal proceedings," id., at 360, is necessary lest "civil commitment" become a "mechanism for retribution or general deterrence," id., at 372-373. In Hendricks, this Court did not give "lack of control" a particularly narrow or technical meaning, and in cases where it is at issue, "inability to control behavior" will not be demonstrable with mathematical precision. It is enough to say that there must be proof of serious difficulty in controlling behavior. The Constitution's liberty safeguards in the area of mental illness are not always best enforced through precise bright-line rules. States retain considerable leeway in defining the mental abnormalities and personality disorders that make an individual eligible for commitment; and psychiatry, which informs but does not control ultimate legal determinations, is an ever-advancing science, whose distinctions do not seek precisely to mirror those of the law. Consequently, the Court has sought to provide constitutional guidance in this area by proceeding deliberately and contextually, elaborating generally stated constitutional standards and objectives as specific circumstances require, the approach embodied in Henricks. That Hendricks limited its discussion to volitional disabilities is not surprising, as the case involved pedophilia--a mental abnormality involving what a lay person might describe as a lack of control. But when considering civil commitment, the Court has not ordinarily distinguished for constitutional purposes between volitional, emotional, and cognitive impairments. See, e.g., Jones v. United States, 463 U. S. 354. The Court in Hendricks had no occasion to consider whether confinement based solely on "emotional" abnormality would be constitutional, and has no occasion to do so here. Pp. 4-8.) 1997-06-23: Kansas -v- Hendricks (US Supreme Court)(Civil Commitment Constitutional) (Kansas' Sexually Violent Predator Act establishes procedures for the civil commitment of persons who, due to a "mental abnormality" or a "personality disorder," are likely to engage in "predatory acts of sexual violence." Kansas filed a petition under the Act in state court to commit respondent (and cross petitioner) Hendricks, who had a long history of sexually molesting children and was scheduled for release from prison. The court reserved ruling on Hendricks' challenge to the Act's constitutionality, but granted his request for a jury trial. After Hendricks testified that he agreed with the state physician's diagnosis that he suffers from pedophilia and is not cured and that he continues to harbor sexual desires for children that he cannot control when he gets "stressed out," the jury determined that he was a sexually violent predator. Finding that pedophilia qualifies as a mental abnormality under the Act, the court ordered him committed. On appeal, the State Supreme Court invalidated the Act on the ground that the precommitment condition of a "mental abnormality" did not satisfy what it perceived to be the "substantive" due process requirement that involuntary civil commitment must be predicated on a "mental illness" finding. It did not address Hendricks' ex post-facto and double jeopardy claims. )

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