Letters to the Editor	Letters Archive

From Kansas: Kudos...

I taught constitutional history for some twenty years at the college level and was surprised that the [Supreme] Court went in the direction it did in [Kansas v Hendricks (wherein the court ruled that states could lock up people indefinitely even after their entire sentence has been served if they have a "mental defect"; see "America's Sex Gulags," August, 1997)]. Also, I was one of three members of the Kansas House who voted against the so-called sexual predator bill.

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I suppose there are two reasons for the holding. First, if we assume that the incarceration in a mental institution following the subjects' having served a sentence for a crime in which he was found guilty is due to a mental illness, then I believe he can be locked up. I do not believe he can be locked up-- again-- for the same crime for which guilt was established, a sentence passed, and time served.

The second part of the whole thing is the mania that people now exhibit over any sexual allegation involving children. It appears that the Court is not well-insulated from this mania. I am grateful for your article and wish you much success.

Ralph M. Tanner

Kansas State Representative

Topeka, Kansas

... and Criticism

Your article ["America's Sex Gulags," August 1997] implies that prison officials alone can extend incarceration [of those deemed "sexual violent predators"].

I believe the sexual predator law requires a unanimous vote of a 12-person jury. The defendant can also periodically petition for review. Recidivism is high for sexual predators-- especially child molesters. This law attempts to address the problem, but does not deny due process.

Dennis McKinney

Kansas State Representative

Topeka, Kansas

Our understanding of Kansas's law establishing sex gulags is different from representative McKinney's.

After completing the sentence stipulated by a criminal proceeding, the Kansas law allows prosecutors to request that the person to be released be declared a "sexually violent predator." If "examiners" find it "likely" that the person in question would commit another crime if set free, they can recommend further-- indefinite-- incarceration in a prison/"rehabilitation" facility. The prisoner has the right to demand a jury trial to review this determination. But here's the catch: a unanimous verdict to incarcerate results in incarceration, hung juries leave the state able to request another trial (all the while the prisoner remains... a prisoner), making the only possible route to freedom a unanimous verdict in favor of the already-tagged-as-such "sexually violent predator."

The political reality of the times is that no "examiner," judge, or jury is likely to ever find someone branded a "sexually violent predator" by prosecutors fit to walk free. So, the effect of the Kansas law is to lock people away until the prosecution relents; prosecutors, political creatures themselves, aren't ever likely to recommend freedom for anyone deemed a "sexually violent predator," so once someone has been so stigmatized, they are likely prisoners of the state until they die. (Leroy Hendricks, the "sexually violent predator" whose case reached the US Supreme Court, was never violent nor predatory in his-- non-penetrative-- sexual shenanigans with his legally-underage partners; nonetheless, he will probably die in Kansas's custody-- for what politician/official has the courage to defend the rights of a convicted "sexually violent predator," whatever the facts may be?)

The clear intent of Kansas's sexual predator laws (even as stated by Kansas Attorney General Carla Stovall in her testimony before that state's Senate Judiciary Committee) is to punish; talk of "treatment" is designed to appease those made squeamish by the shockingly totalitarian aspects of such laws.

(And actually, recidivism rates for those committed of sex "crimes" are lower than for those found guilty of serious, violent felonies, according to the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives; see www.ncianet.org/ncia/)

Kansas, like other states, now claims the power to have bureaucrats imprison and punish its citizens indefinitely with due process protections that Joseph Stalin might have concocted. Such judicial travesties are allowed (indeed created) by our culture's sexual hysteria and politicians' chest-thumping. If, though, such laws have come about in part through legislative ignorance, perhaps Representative McKinney will dedicate himself to leading his colleagues to saner, more rational laws that respect constitutional rights.

Numero Uno South of the Border

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Juan Rico

"juanrico"@antequera.com

Oaxaca, Mexico

Back, in the Ex-USSR...

Hello dear friends!

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My name is Anatoly and I am Ukrainian gay. But this is not easy to be gay in the ex-USSR. People still do not understand us. They think the gays cannot be part of theirs. It is difficult to try to find the gay friends because all gays try to keep own sexual orientation in the top secret. In different way the life can look like hell. The gays do not have the bars and disco in my city-- even places for meeting is big problem.

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Anatoly

Kharkov, Ukraine