Criminal Law and Procedure Decisions: Seling v. Young</titl <body>  <script language="javascript1.1" src="http://images.findlaw.com/tracking/wss-lp.js"></script> <script language="javascript1.1" src="http://images.findlaw.com/tracking/hbx-0250.js"></script> <noscript> <img src="http://ehg-findlaw.hitbox.com/HG?hc=we76&cd=1&hv=6&ce=u&hb=DM531216MLSZ&n=LP&vcon=NO+JAVASCRIPT&vpc=HBX0250u" border="0" width="1" height="1"> </noscript>  <div id="main"> <div id="doc3" class="pro"> <div id="bd"> <div class="yui-g" id="header"> <div id="header_sub_center"> <h1 id="logo"><a href="http://lp.findlaw.com"><b>FindLaw | Find a Lawyer. Find Answers.</b></a></h1> <div id="question"> <h3><a href="http://www.findlaw.com/" class="c_4">Non-Professional? 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Young</h5><p align="center"><b>Sexual Predators – Civil Commitment</b></p><p><b>Case: <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=99-1185">Seling v. Young</a></b></p><p><b>Issue:</b> Can a statute authorizing civil commitment of sexually-violent predators, which statute has already been held to be civil in nature on its face, be found punitive (and therefore criminal) <U>as applied</U> to a particular person and thus be subject to challenge under the Double Jeopardy and <I>Ex Post Facto</I> Clauses of the Constitution?</p><p><b>Facts:</b> Washington State’s Community Protection Act of 1990 (“the Act”) authorizes the civil commitment of “sexually-violent predators” who suffer from a mental abnormality or personality disorder “that makes them likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence.” Respondent Andre Brigham Young was confined under the terms of the Act. Under the Act, a person cannot be civilly committed unless the State establishes his sexually-violent nature by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The Act provides a plethora of procedural safeguards to alleged predators and requires the State to review annually each alleged predator. A person detained may petition the court for review of his status and, upon a probable cause finding that the person is no longer dangerous, the State must re-establish by proof beyond a reasonable doubt his status as a sexually-violent predator. </p><p>Young, who was convicted of six rapes over three decades, unsuccessfully challenged his confinement through Washington State courts. He contended, among other things, that his confinement violated the <I>Ex Post Facto</I> and Double Jeopardy Clauses of the United States Constitution. In denying this claim, the Washington Supreme Court reasoned “that the claimant's’ double jeopardy and <I>ex post facto</I> claims hinged on whether the Act is civil or criminal in nature.” Following Supreme Court precedent, the court looked to the language, legislative history, and purpose and effect of the statutory scheme and found that the legislature intended “to create a civil scheme.” The court also examined the impact of the Act and found “that the Washington Act is designed to further legitimate goals of civil confinement and that the claimants had failed to provide proof to the contrary.” </p><p>After his unsuccessful state court challenges to confinement, Young filed a habeas action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 against the superintendent of the center where he was confined. The United States District Court granted the writ concluding that the Act was criminal in nature and violated the Double Jeopardy and <I>Ex Post Facto</I> Clauses of the Constitution. While appeal was pending at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the United States Supreme Court decided <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=95-1649">Kansas v. Hendricks</a>, 521 U.S. 346 (1997). <U>Hendricks</U> held that Kansas’s Sexually-Violent Predator Act, which was “strikingly similar” to and modeled upon the Washington Act, “on its face, met substantive due process requirements, was non-punitive, and thus did not violate the Double Jeopardy and <I>Ex Post Facto</I> Clauses.” The Ninth Circuit remanded to the District Court for reconsideration in light of <U>Hendricks</U>. The District Court subsequently denied Young’s petition. </p><p>Young appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which “affirmed the District Court’s ruling that Young’s confinement did not violate the substantive due process requirement that the state prove mental illness and dangerousness to justify confinement. . . . The Court of Appeals also left undisturbed the District Court’s conclusion that the Act meets procedural due process and equal protection guarantees and the District Court’s rejection of Young’s challenges to his commitment proceedings.” The Ninth Circuit, however, “reversed the District Court’s determination that because the Washington Act is civil, Young’s double jeopardy and <I>ex post facto</I> claims must fail. The ‘linchpin’ of Young’s claims, the court reasoned, was whether the Act was punitive ‘as applied’ to Young.” The Ninth Circuit did not read <U>Hendricks</U> “to preclude the possibility that the Act could be punitive as applied.” The court reasoned that actual conditions of confinement could divest a facially valid statute of its civil label “upon a showing by the clearest proof that the statutory scheme is punitive in effect.” </p><p>Meanwhile, in <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=wa&vol=641005&invol=o01">In re Turay</a>, 139 Wash.2d 379, 986 P.2d 790 (1999), the Washington Supreme Court rejected a similar “as applied” challenge to the Act. The Supreme Court granted the petition for a writ of certiorari in order to resolve the conflict between the Ninth Circuit and the Washington Supreme Court.</p><p><b>Holding:</b> “An Act, found to be civil, cannot be deemed punitive ‘as applied’ to a single individual in violation of the Double Jeopardy and <I>Ex Post Facto</I> Clauses and provide cause for release.”</p><p><b>Reasoning:</b> Justice O’Connor, writing for the Court, noted that in <U>Hendricks</U> the Court had examined a virtually identical statute, looking at legislative intent, the statutory scheme as a whole, and “the conditions of confinement provided by the Act.” The Court had concluded that the Kansas Act was non-punitive and “‘thus remove[d] an essential prerequisite for both <U>Hendricks</U>’ double jeopardy and <I>ex post facto</I> claims.’” Justice O’Connor also noted that in <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=96-976">Hudson v. United States</a>, 522 U.S. 93 (1997), involving a double jeopardy challenge to monetary penalties and occupational debarment, “this Court expressly disapproved of evaluating the civil nature of an Act by reference to the effect that Act has on a single individual.” Justice O’Connor stressed that “we evaluate respondent’s allegations as presented in a double jeopardy and <I>ex post facto</I> challenge under the assumption that the Act is civil.” O’Connor did not deny that some of Young’s allegations were serious. She also made it clear that the Court expressed no view “as to how his allegations would bear on a court determining in the first instance whether Washington’s confinement scheme is civil.” The problem, however, with an “as applied” challenge is that an “as applied” analysis “would prove unworkable. Such an analysis would never conclusively resolve whether a particular scheme is punitive and would thereby prevent a final determination of the scheme’s validity under the Double Jeopardy and <I>Ex Post Facto</I> Clauses. . . . Unlike a fine, confinement is not a fixed event. As petitioner notes, it extends over time under conditions that are subject to change. The particular features of confinement may affect how a confinement scheme is evaluated to determine whether it is civil rather than punitive, but it remains no less true that the query must be answered definitively. The civil nature of a confinement scheme cannot be altered based merely on vagaries in the implementation of the authorizing statute.” </p><p>Though acknowledging that the Court had considered conditions of confinement in passing on previously challenged confinement schemes, Justice O’Connor stressed that those cases “presented the question whether the Act at issue was punitive. Permitting respondent’s ‘as applied’ challenge would invite an end run around the Washington Supreme Court’s decision that the Act is civil in circumstances where a direct attack on that decision is not before this Court.” Justice O’Connor noted that Young had other avenues available to remedy “the alleged conditions and treatment regime at the Center.” Justice O’Connor also noted that the Court’s decision was confined to the double jeopardy and <I>ex post facto</I> issues and reiterated that “[w]e have not squarely addressed the relevance of conditions of confinement to a first instance determination [of whether a statute is civil in nature], and that question need not be resolved here.” The judgment of the Ninth Circuit was therefore reversed. </p><p><b>Other Opinions:</b> Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Souter, concurred in the Court’s opinion. He wrote separately “to disassociate myself” from any implication in the majority opinion that a court can look to actual conditions of confinement and implementation in determining “in the first instance” whether a confinement scheme is civil. Justice Scalia saw that question as all but settled by <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=96-976">Hudson v. United States</a>, 522 U.S. 93 (1997), which, though not involving confinement, rejected a similar double jeopardy challenge “as applied” to a petitioner. In <U>Hudson</U>, “the statute had <I>not</I> yet been determined to be civil in nature, and . . . we were making that determination ‘in the first instance.’” The Court in <U>Hudson</U> found it irrelevant that the amount of the penalty assessed against the petitioners appeared to be affected by their “good faith,” a factor normally indicating that an assessment is punitive. The <U>Hudson</U> court looked “only to ‘the statute on its face’ to determine whether a penalty [was] criminal in nature.” For “Double Jeopardy and <I>Ex Post Facto</I> Clause purposes, the question of criminal penalty <I>vel non</I> depends upon the intent of the legislature; and harsh executive implementation cannot” change a remedy intended to be civil into a criminal one, “any more than compassionate executive implementation can transform a criminal penalty into a civil remedy.” The remedy for dealing with facially civil statutes that are implemented in a manner that renders the statute criminal is to “resort to the traditional state proceedings that challenge unlawful executive action.” Only if such proceedings fail “and the state courts authoritatively interpret the state statute as permitting impositions that are indeed punitive” can federal courts pronounce a statute that on its face is civil to be criminal. </p><p>Justice Thomas concurred in the judgment, expressing the view that “a statute which is civil on its face cannot be divested of its civil nature simply because of the manner in which it is implemented” and “that the distinction between the challenge in the ‘first instance’ and a subsequent challenge is one without a difference.” Thomas first noted that Young’s challenge was not really “as applied” in nature. “As applied” challenges are typically to statutes that <U>by their own terms</U> infringe constitutional rights <U>in a particular case</U>. By way of contrast, Young was challenging the <U>implementation</U> of a statute that was allegedly <U>contrary to the statute’s terms</U>. This is forbidden by <U>Hudson</U>. “<U>Hudson</U> . . . contains no indication whatsoever that its holding is limited to the specific sanctions at issue.” Implementation based challenges are no more rational in the “first instance” than they are after the fact. They are equally unworkable because “the actual conditions of confinement may change over time and may vary from facility to facility.” Therefore, “an implementation based challenge, if successful, would serve to invalidate a statute that may be implemented without any constitutional infirmities at a future time or in a separate facility.” To the extent that conditions of confinement are specified on the face of a statute, Justice Thomas agreed that courts could consider them in determining whether a statute is punitive. Otherwise, however, “the conditions are <I>not</I> the effect of the statute, . . . but rather the effect of its improper implementation. A suit based on these conditions cannot prevail.” </p><p>Justice Stevens dissented, noting that “the question of whether a state statute is civil or criminal in nature for purposes of complying with the demands of the Federal Constitution is a question of federal law.” Detainees should be allowed to come forward and offer the “clearest proof” that the statutory scheme is so punitive in purpose or effect that it negates the state’s intention that the proceeding be civil. According to Stevens, Young never conceded that the statute was civil in nature. He sought to introduce “evidence of the conditions of confinement as evidence of the punitive purpose and effect of the Washington statute.” Nor did Young argue that the Act was criminal because of its application to a particular prisoner. Though the question of whether an act is civil or punitive is “initially one of statutory construction,” under the majority’s approach “there is no inquiry beyond that of statutory construction.” The majority would only consider questions of confinement in the first challenge to a statute. But that is when “the evidence of such conditions is most likely <I>not</I> likely to constitute the requisite ‘clearest proof.’” To Stevens this seemed wrong. “If conditions of confinement are such that a detainee has been punished twice in violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause, it is irrelevant that the scheme has been previously labeled as civil without full knowledge of the effects of the statute.”</p><p><b>Comment</b>: Yet again, a lower federal court finds a specious reason to ignore Supreme Court precedent. The Justices just “don't get no respect.” The Court’s granting of certiorari to resolve a split in authority between a federal court of appeals and a <U>state</U> supreme court was an unmistakable slap at the Ninth Circuit.</p></div> </div>       <div id="fl_container3"> <script language="javascript">fl_legal_645x52();</script> <script language="javascript">fl_legal_645x52();</script> <script language="javascript">fl_legal_645x52();</script> <div id="fl_label">Ads by FindLaw</div> </div> <script> hide_box('fl_container3'); </script>   <div id="fl_container_goog"> <script language="JavaScript1.1" src="http://images.findlaw.com/lp/google.js"></script> <script language="JavaScript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script> </div>  </div> </div> <div class="nav_right rn_inner">  <div class="sections yui-g"> <h2 class="right" style="color:#666666;">Welcome Legal Professionals</h2> <p>FindLaw provides the resources to help you practice law. 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