>>>http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/17/scotus.sex.offenders/index.html?hpt=T2
>>>
>>>Finally, they show some guts.....
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>>I disagree STRONGLY. Tough on crime doesn't mean arbitrarily changing sentences and holding people beyond their sentence. Tough on crime means being tough at the time of sentencing and within the law.
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>>As much as I would love to see sexual predators behind bars indefinitely, if the government or society needs dangerous people behind bars indefinitely to protect society, then I think the sentencing law should have changed instead. Once the sentence is served, they should be free (as horrible as that idea is). If they need the opportunity to keep sexual predators behind bars, then the law for the possible sentences should change. Once a person is sentenced, that is his/her sentence unless he/she breaks the law again, (which will trigger a new sentence or new court case) or breaks parole (which puts them back into jail by already existing laws). You cannot arbitrarily decide to keep someone behind bars after their sentence is completed. That is getting too close to the practice of governments 100 years ago who would keep people behind bars indefinitely. Scary. Where will it stop? This is just another example of government overstepping its bounds I'm afraid. It is a clear case of overstepping the bounds and very very scary. What offenses will be affected next? Who decides who is so dangerous that they can be held indefinitely beyond their sentence? CRAZY
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>>I agree with Judge Clarence Thomas on this one - the federal government has overstepped its bounds.
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>I agree with everything you've stated. Our system of justice requires equal disposition of punishments and for them to be commiserate with the crime. The idea that "officials" can arbitrarily determine that a prisoner is "sexually dangerous" and therefore unfit to rejoin society at the conclusion of their legally obtained sentence and therefore extend the sentence indefinitely represents a striking violation of due process. This says nothing of the fact that they may not have even been imprisoned for a sexual crime in the first place, nor does it require evidence that this "condition" will manifest itself in the form of a federal criminal violation over which the federal officials would even have authority.
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>Thomas in dissent :
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>First, the statute’s definition of a “sexually dangerous person” contains no element relating to the subject’s crime. See §§4247(a)(5)–(6). It thus does not require a federal court to find any connection between the reasons supporting civil commitment and the enumerated power with which that person’s criminal conduct interfered. As a consequence, §4248 allows a court to civilly commit an individual without finding that he was ever charged with or convicted of a federal crime involving sexual violence.
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>Second, §4248 permits the term of federal civil commitment to continue beyond the date on which a convicted prisoner’s sentence expires or the date on which the statute of limitations on an untried defendant’s crime has run. The statute therefore authorizes federal custody over a person at a time when the Government would lack jurisdiction to detain him for violating a criminal law that executes an enumerated power.
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>Third, the definition of a “sexually dangerous person” relevant to §4248 does not require the court to find that the person is likely to violate a law executing an enumerated power in the future...Section 4248, by contrast, authorizes civil commitment upon a showing that the person is “sexually dangerous,” and presents a risk “to others,” §4247(a)(5). It requires no evidence that this sexually dangerous condition will manifest itself in a way that interferes with a federal law that executes an enumerated power or in a geographic location over which Congress has plenary authority.
> -- emphasis mine
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>This doesn't even touch on the constitutional hoop jumping required to justify this under the Necessary and Proper clause. Right up there with Kelo v. New London. Private property was supremely dismantled, now so is due process.
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>US v. Comstock.
>http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1224.pdf
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>Update : It should be noted that the ability of individual States to enact civil commitment legislation was upheld back in 1995. This ruling has to do with the federal law.

Another concern. Civil commitment was originally designed to confine the severely mentally ill - those who are so mentally ill that they present a danger to society - not those not found mentally ill and serving prison sentences ordered via the judicial system. The commitment was in psychiatric hospitals, not prison. This would take more research to really delve into it so hopefully someone will and correct me if my understanding is wrong. It is concerning that a person could be sentenced (due process) and not considered mentally ill at that time, but a law designed to protect the public from the seriously mentally ill can be used to abuse due process and commit a person to prison beyond their sentence.