Court Sympathetic To Sex Crime Victims Justices Sound As If They Think Sex Predators Should Be Kept Behind Bars Beyond Their Prison Terms
The justices of the Supreme Court sounded Tuesday as though they may be willing to uphold the new wave of laws aimed at keeping sexual predators behind bars - and for the same powerful reason that lawmakers in six states, including Washington, have passed such measures in the first place.
Comments by several justices as they reviewed one of those laws suggested they are sympathetic to the argument that the public deserves to be protected from sex criminals who are deemed dangerous and likely to molest children or rape women again if released from custody.
A Wichita, Kan., lawyer for a 62-year-old Kansas pedophile had the unenviable task Tuesday of trying to convince the justices his client should be freed.
In 1994, Leroy Hendricks completed a 10-year prison term for molesting two 12-year-old boys. But Kansas officials said he was a dangerous offender who still posed a threat to children.
Now, he is locked up indefinitely for “treatment.”
“This is a continued incarceration for the same conviction,” attorney Thomas Weilert told the Supreme Court. “It fundamentally undermines the Constitution’s right to liberty.”
But that otherwise convincing constitutional argument ran smack into the case’s practical reality.
If Hendricks is released, interrupted Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, “there is a very high risk of him committing sex crimes against children. Isn’t there?” she asked, pausing for emphasis.
Weilert agreed that is a possibility.
“So what’s the state supposed to do - wait till he does it again?” asked Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.
The attorney suggested that his client could be paroled with restrictions, such as that he be forbidden from going near schools or being around children.
“We all know as a practical matter that is not very effective,” O’Connor said.
“We read about these cases every day. It’s simply not very effective to put on a piece of paper: Don’t go near school.”