HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 09 - 17-3891 City of Orono TA Sex Offender Residency - Exhibit F1/4/2017 Court affirms constitutionality of sexoffender program in Minn. StarTribune.com
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LOCAL
Appellate court affirms constitutionality
of Minnesota's sexoffender program
Appeals court hands setback to sex offenders who sued over
detention.
By Chris Serres (http://www.startribune.com/chris‑serres/10645926/) Star Tribune
JANUARY 4, 2017 — 8:24AM
A federal appeals court in St. Louis has declared that Minnesota’s sex offender treatment
program is constitutional — handing a major victory to the state but potentially
derailing long-awaited reforms to its system of indefinite detention for sex offenders.
In a decision released Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of
Appeals reversed a lower-court ruling and found that Minnesota’s system of committing
sex offenders beyond their prison terms serves a “legitimate interest” in protecting
citizens from dangerous sexual predators.
The ruling is a major setback for civil rights attorneys and a host of lawmakers who have
spent much of the past five years pressing for reforms that would put offenders on a
faster path toward release from the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP). The
appellate panel essentially has given Minnesota’s program a clean bill of health, relieving
immediate pressure on state officials to make major reforms to a program that has long
been criticized as inhumane.
A class of sex offenders sued the state in 2011, arguing during a prolonged trial that
Minnesota’s system violated their due-process rights under the U.S. Constitution by
depriving them of access to the courts and other basic safeguards found in the criminal
justice system.
But after reviewing the program and state law, the appeals court sided with the state,
concluding that Minnesota provided adequate constitutional protections, including the
right to petition for release.
“We conclude that the class plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that any of the …
arguable shortcomings in the MSOP were egregious, malicious, or sadistic as is
necessary to meet the conscience-shocking standard,” the Eighth Circuit panel ruled.
Reached Tuesday, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney said the appellate judges used too narrow
a standard for reviewing his clients’ due-process claims, and said he is considering an
appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which must be filed within 90 days.
“Justice was not done today,” said attorney Dan Gustafson. “We’re still considering what
we are going to do, but, as Gov. Dayton said the other day, we are not going quietly into
the night.”
Among detainees at the MSOP’s campus in St. Peter, Tuesday’s ruling was met with “a
mix of despair and anxiety,” said Benjamin Alverson, 41, a sex offender who has been at
the MSOP for more than 11 years. Word of the ruling spread through the campus just
before noon as clients were heading to the cafeteria for lunch, he said. “There is a feeling
that we should just give up, because now we’re never getting out,” he said. “There were a
lot of heavy sighs.”
Minnesota has long stood out among the states for both the number of sexual predators
it commits and for the duration of their confinement without review. During a federal
trial in 2015, MSOP administrators admitted they may be detaining untold numbers of
offenders who no longer meet the statutory criteria for confinement.
In a history spanning more than 20 years, the MSOP has granted conditional discharge
to only 14 offenders. Only one person, a 26-year-old confined for sexual acts he
committed as a juvenile, has been fully discharged from MSOP, and that did not occur
until August of this year.
In June 2015, U.S. Judge Donovan Frank in St. Paul declared the MSOP unconstitutional,
citing the program’s low rate of release and lack of regular risk evaluations of offenders.
While Frank stopped short of closing the program, he ordered state officials to make
(http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/ows_144685444241138.jpg)
JIM GEHRZ, STAR TRIBUNE
Pexton Hall is a heavily secured building at the
treatment facility in St. Peter where some of
those who have been civilly committed to the…721
Number conyned in Minnesota’s sex
offender program
89
Nearing approval for conditional release
$89.7 million
Annual budget for yscal year, 2017
Estimated annual cost per MSOP client
$124,000
Source: Minnesota Department of Human
Services
Council
Exhibit F
17-3891
1/4/2017 Court affirms constitutionality of sexoffender program in Minn. StarTribune.com
http://www.startribune.com/appellatecourtaffirmsconstitutionalityofminnesotassexoffenderprogram/409518625/2/2
reforms designed to put less-dangerous offenders on a clearer path toward release. These
included independent risk assessments of the roughly 720 offenders confined at secure
treatment centers in Moose Lake and St. Peter, and the development of more options for
housing offenders in the community. The Eighth Circuit Court had stayed these reforms
while Frank’s decision was on appeal.
The threat of more radical sanctions, including the possible shutdown of the program
and release of hundreds of offenders, acted as a powerful incentive for state officials to
make the program less punitive. A record number of detainees at the MSOP have been
moved closer toward release, and a total of 89 are now in dormlike settings on the
MSOP’s St. Peter campus, the final step before release.
However, with the ruling Tuesday, the MSOP will no longer be under constant pressure
to demonstrate that its program is not just a punitive system for segregating offenders,
say legal experts.
“This is a train wreck for civil rights,” said Warren Maas, an attorney who represents sex
offenders. “My concern is that staff at MSOP will ... stop working as hard and just say,
‘We’re going to let these guys sit because it’s the easiest thing to do.’ ”
But in an interview Tuesday, Human Services Commissioner Emily Piper made it clear
that her agency would continue with improvements at the MSOP, including pressing
forward with millions of dollars in new infrastructure. In his bonding bill last year, Gov.
Mark Dayton sought $12.4 million to build two facilities to house discharged sex
offenders in the community, as well as $14.5 million to expand housing at a program at
St. Peter designed to reintegrate offenders into the community. Dayton also sought
funding to conduct more regular assessments of MSOP clients.
For his part, Dayton said Tuesday that the ruling “means we can continue to make the
reforms that we have started at our own pace … rather than having it be done under a
federal directive.”
While the governor’s funding proposals failed last spring, Piper said she anticipates
renewing them. “The need still exists. Nothing in this ruling will change the way we
operate this program.”
Even so, the ruling may reduce pressure on Minnesota and other states to pursue
reforms of civil commitment programs that hold offenders beyond their prison terms,
said Eric Janus, a law professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law and author of a book
on sexual predator laws.
“This decision will send a signal to states that they don’t have to worry too much about
the federal courts looking over their shoulders,” Janus said. “Essentially, the Eighth
Circuit has said: We are washing our hands of any kind of meaningful oversight of this
kind of post-prison confinement.”
Staff writer Ricardo Lopez contributed to this report.
Twitter: @chrisserres
chris.serres@startribune.com 612‑673‑4308 chrisserres