NCJ Number
191359
Journal
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Volume: 29 Issue: 3 Dated: 2001 Pages: 340-343
Date Published
2001
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article profiles court proceedings that have involved the management of sex offender Andrew Brigham Young under Washington State's sexually violent predator (SVP) law.
Abstract
The Washington SVP law provides for the civil commitment of a sexually violent predator, described as "any person who has been convicted of or charged with a crime of sexual violence and who suffers from a mental abnormality or personality disorder which makes the person likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence if not confined in a secure facility." Individuals in Washington's SVP program have been housed in the Special Commitment Center (SCC). Individuals in the Washington State SVP program and their attorneys have been using every imaginable avenue of attack to dismantle the program. The current article focuses on the court proceedings that have involved Andrew Brigham Young, who was convicted of six rapes over 3 decades. One day before his scheduled release from State prison in October 1990, the State filed a petition to commit Young as an SVP. In a jury trial to determine whether Young qualified as an SVP, the jury unanimously voted that Young qualified as an SVP. Subsequently, Young and another SCC committee challenged their SCC commitments in State court based on double jeopardy and ex post facto claims. The Washington State Supreme Court rejected these claims in In re Young because the SVP commitment law is civil. Young filed a writ of habeas corpus against the superintendent of the SCC (Seling). The Federal district court granted the writ based on substantive due process violations, as the Washington law was viewed as criminal and not civil and therefore the double-jeopardy and ex post facto constitutional protections applied. The State appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, just after the U.S. Supreme Court decided a SVP case (Kansas v. Hendricks), which held that the Kansas SVP law did not violate substantive due process requirements. As a result, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded Young's case to the Federal district court for reconsideration in light of Kansas v. Hendricks. On remand, the district court denied Young's writ. Young again appealed, and the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded in part and affirmed in part. The court ruled that Young's confinement did not violate substantive due process, procedural due process, or equal protection constitutional guarantees, and Young did not seek review of these in the U.S. Supreme Court. The issue for the U.S. Supreme Court in Seling v. Young became the Ninth Circuit's reversal of the district court's determination that the Washington SVP law is civil. The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit's ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings. Seling v. Young clearly indicates that the U.S. Supreme Court is reluctant to be the decision maker about what constitutes a civil or criminal scheme for a particular SVP statute and reserved that decision for the State. In April 2000 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to place a third SVP case on the next term's docket.