412
Opinion of the Court
Treatment of Sexual Abusers as Amicus Curiae 3; cf. Brief for American Psychiatric Association et al. as Amici Curiae 10; cf. also American Psychiatric Association, Statement on the Insanity Defense 11 (1982), reprinted in G. Melton, J. Petrila, N. Poythress, & C. Slobogin, Psychological Evaluations for the Courts 200 (2d ed. 1997) (" 'The line between an irresistible impulse and an impulse not resisted is probably no sharper than that between twilight and dusk' "). Moreover, most severely ill people—even those commonly termed "psychopaths"—retain some ability to control their behavior. See Morse, Culpability and Control, 142 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1587, 1634-1635 (1994); cf. Winick, Sex Offender Law in the 1990s: A Therapeutic Jurisprudence Analysis, 4 Psychol. Pub. Pol'y & L. 505, 520-525 (1998). Insistence upon absolute lack of control would risk barring the civil commitment of highly dangerous persons suffering severe mental abnormalities.
We do not agree with the State, however, insofar as it seeks to claim that the Constitution permits commitment of the type of dangerous sexual offender considered in Hendricks without any lack-of-control determination. See Brief for Petitioner 17; Tr. of Oral Arg. 22, 30-31. Hendricks underscored the constitutional importance of distinguishing a dangerous sexual offender subject to civil commitment "from other dangerous persons who are perhaps more properly dealt with exclusively through criminal proceedings." 521 U. S., at 360. That distinction is necessary lest "civil commitment" become a "mechanism for retribution or general deterrence"—functions properly those of criminal law, not civil commitment. Id., at 372-373 (Kennedy, J., concurring); cf. also Moran, The Epidemiology of Antisocial Personality Disorder, 34 Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology 231, 234 (1999) (noting that 40%-60% of the male prison population is diagnosable with antisocial personality disorder). The presence of what the "psychiatric profession itself classifie[d] . . . as a serious mental disorder" helped to make that distinction in Hendricks. And a critical distinguishing feature of that "serious . . . disorder" there
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