THEIR RIGHTS AND OURS:

Questions Rise Over Imprisoning Sex Offenders Past Their Terms (LAURA MANSNERUS, 11/17/03, NY Times)

Mr. Deavers is one of 287 "sexually violent predators" in two high-security psychiatric centers in the state.

The law has long allowed the commitment of mentally ill people who pose an imminent danger to others. But the detention of these men, many legal experts say, is a striking departure from the principle that people who are not mentally ill may be confined only for their acts, not their thoughts.

In yearly review hearings, the men are judged by their sexual tastes and fantasies — or what psychiatrists suppose to be their fantasies — as well as their performance on psychological tests, their attitudes toward authority and their willingness to acknowledge their crimes and disorders.

Many are rapists or child molesters, and the fear that they might commit more of the same crimes is grave. In 1998 New Jersey — like other states reacting to murders by sex offenders with previous convictions — authorized the commitment of anyone who has served time for a sex crime and is found to have a "mental abnormality or personality disorder" that makes him likely to commit another crime. These men are to be given treatment, chiefly group therapy, until they are judged no longer dangerous.

Five years later, only a handful have been released, and critics of the commitment process — psychiatrists, civil-liberties advocates and even some early supporters of the law — are concerned that it is merely an exercise rigged to keep sex offenders locked up for a lifetime.

One Kearny resident, committed after five years in prison for having sex with a teenager, said, "I'd be better off if I'd killed him."

The process is severe for a purpose: dealing with a type of criminal that society regards as dangerous, devious and manipulative.

Should John Hinckley Go Free? (MICHAEL SOKOLOVE, 11/16/03, NY Times Magazine)

Fifteen months after the shooting, at the end of a seven-week trial, a jury in Washington rendered its verdict on John Hinckley: not guilty by reason of insanity. The first two words of that verdict -- "not guilty" -- were (and remain) the most important. Their meaning is that Hinckley was held legally blameless -- in the grip, on the day of the shootings, of a psychological defect that roiled his thinking and shut down his judgment.

Hinckley was 27 years old when he entered St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington on June 22, 1982, the day after the verdict. He is 48 now. The law is clear on what should happen at the point Hinckley is judged to be sane. When he is no longer a danger to himself or to others, he is to be set free.

This week, a hearing is scheduled to begin on Hinckley's petition for a "limited conditional release." If it is granted, he will be permitted a series of visits off the hospital grounds with his parents -- and without hospital staff. These will be day outings, and if all goes well, overnight visits will follow.

When he entered St. Elizabeths, Hinckley was given a diagnosis of two major psychological maladies -- psychosis and major depression. According to his doctors, both are now in "full remission." In fact, his treatment team began saying that as far back as 1985.

In his motion to the United States District Court, Hinckley's lawyer, Barry Levine, called the conditional release "the appropriate next step in Mr. Hinckley's treatment." The hospital also supported Hinckley's conditional release, while recommending a more phased-in series of visits.

The government opposes any release, because the incremental steps lead ultimately to his full freedom. That Hinckley could live outside a prison or a locked hospital ward is, for many, a profoundly uncomfortable thought. He tried to kill the president. He had an attraction to Nazism and an affinity for Charles Manson.

But there is a powerful counterargument to be made that Hinckley's release is long overdue. In the disposition of "insanity acquittees," the law does not sort them by whom they shot.

It seems appropriate to invoke a pretty simple principle here: society has a right to defend itself. If John Hinckley isn't a threat to anyone anymore, let him go. If Mr. Deavers is a threat, keep him locked up by whatever means necessary.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 17, 2003 9:41 AM