Oklahoma Law Review Volume 67 Number 4 2014 Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, and the Failed Experiment of “Sexually Violent Predator” Commitment Deirdre M. Smith University of Maine School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/olr Part of the Criminal Law Commons, and the Law and Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Deirdre M. Smith, Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, and the Failed Experiment of “Sexually Violent Predator” Commitment, 67 OKLA. L. REV. 619 (2015), https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/olr/vol67/iss4/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Oklahoma Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, and the Failed Experiment of “Sexually Violent Predator” Commitment Cover Page Footnote I am grateful to the following people who read earlier drafts of this article and provided many helpful insights: David Cluchey, Malick Ghachem, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, and Jenny Roberts. I also appreciate the comments and reactions of the participants in the University of Maine School of Law Faculty Workshop, February 2014, and the participants in the Association of American Law Schools Section on Clinical Legal Education Works in Progress Session, May 2014. I am appreciative of Dean Peter Pitegoff for providing summer research support and of the staff of the Donald L. Garbrecht Law Library for its research assistance. This article is available in Oklahoma Law Review: https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/olr/vol67/iss4/1 OKLAHOMA LAW REVIEW VOLUME 67 SUMMER 2015 NUMBER 4 DANGEROUS DIAGNOSES, RISKY ASSUMPTIONS, AND THE FAILED EXPERIMENT OF “SEXUALLY VIOLENT PREDATOR” COMMITMENT * DEIRDRE M. SMITH In its 1997 opinion, Kansas v. Hendricks, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that reflected a new model of civil commitment. The targets of this new commitment law were dubbed “Sexually Violent Predators” (SVPs), and the Court upheld indefinite detention of these individuals on the assumption that there is a psychiatrically distinct class of individuals who, unlike typical recidivists, have a mental condition that impairs their ability to refrain from violent sexual behavior. And, more specifically, the Court assumed that the justice system could reliably identify the true “predators,” those for whom this unusual and extraordinary deprivation of liberty is appropriate and legitimate, with the aid of testimony from mental health professionals. This Article evaluates those assumptions and concludes that, because they were seriously flawed, the due process rationale used to uphold the SVP laws is invalid. The “Sexually Violent Predator” is a political and moral construct, not a medical classification. The implementation of SVP laws has resulted in dangerous distortions of both psychiatric expertise and * Professor of Law and Director of the Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, University of Maine School of Law. I am grateful to the following people who read earlier drafts of this article and provided many helpful insights: David Cluchey, Malick Ghachem, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, and Jenny Roberts. I also appreciate the comments and reactions of the participants in the University of Maine School of Law Faculty Workshop, February 2014, and the participants in the Association of American Law Schools Section on Clinical Legal Education Works in Progress Session, May 2014. I am appreciative of Dean Peter Pitegoff for providing summer research support and of the staff of the Donald L. Garbrecht Law Library for its research assistance. 619 Published by University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons, 2015 620 OKLAHOMA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 67:619 important legal principles, and such distortions reveal an urgent need to re- examine the Supreme Court’s core rationale in upholding the SVP commitment experiment. Table of Contents I. Introduction ........................................................................................... 621 II. The Supreme Court Sanctions the “Sexually Violent Predator” Experiment ................................................................................................ 625 A. The Origins of SVP Commitment ................................................... 627 1. Rise and Fall of Sexual Psychopath Laws .................................... 627 2. The New Experiment: Washington’s Model SVP Law ............... 629 B. Legal Challenges to the New SVP Laws ......................................... 636 1. Background of the Hendricks-Crane Litigation ........................... 637 2. The Supreme Court Upholds the SVP Model of Commitment .... 642 3. The Core Assumptions Underlying the Stated Rationales of Hendricks and Crane ........................................................................ 646 C. The Spread of SVP Laws and Their Impact .................................... 651 III. Distortions of Science and Law in SVP Commitment Proceedings ... 659 A. Psychiatry’s View of Diagnosing and Predicting Sexual Violence . 661 1. Role of Diagnosis and the DSM Generally in Psychiatric Assessment ....................................................................................... 661 2. Origins of Lack of Consensus Regarding Relation of Pathology to Sexual Deviance ............................................................................... 664 3. The DSM and Paraphilias ............................................................ 666 4. Research Undermines Presumed Connections Between Mental Disorders and Sex Crimes ................................................................ 672 5. The Absent Connection Between Psychiatric Assessment of Paraphilia and Determination of “Volitional Impairment” .............. 674 6. ASPD as Alternative Basis of Mental Disorder ........................... 677 7. Psychiatry’s Response to SVP Laws and Hendricks-Crane Rationale .......................................................................................... 679 B. Pathologizing Predators in the Courtroom ....................................... 682 1. One Example of the Distortions: McGee v. Bartow ..................... 684 2. Misuse of Diagnostic Labels ........................................................ 688 3. Basing Opinions on Records and Inadmissible Evidence ............ 696 4. Using Actuarial Tools .................................................................. 701 5. Sparse Use of Daubert-Frye Analysis.......................................... 707 C. Fixing the Science to Fit the Courtroom .......................................... 714 1. Addressing Problems with Diagnoses .......................................... 714 https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/olr/vol67/iss4/1 2015] DANGEROUS DIAGNOSES, RISKY ASSUMPTIONS 621 2. Using Actuarial Tools as a Check on or to Replace Clinical Judgment .......................................................................................... 718 IV. Revisiting the Hendricks-Crane Rationale ......................................... 722 V. Conclusion ........................................................................................... 730 I. Introduction In 1990, the state of Washington was consumed by news of a highly publicized, violent sexual crime committed against a young child by an offender with prior convictions for violence against children.1 In response to public outcry, the Washington legislature enacted a statute allowing the state to continue to detain certain sex offenders after they had completed their criminal sentences.2 The targets of these new laws were dubbed “Sexually Violent Predators” (SVPs), a label intended to connote a subclass of sex offenders who run a high risk of recidivism after their release due to the presence of a mental abnormality or personality disorder.3 Soon thereafter, a few other states, including Kansas, enacted their own commitment laws modeled closely after Washington’s.4 The first person committed under Kansas’s law, Leroy Hendricks, challenged the constitutionality of his indefinite detention on due process, ex post facto, and double jeopardy grounds in a case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.5 In its 1997 opinion Kansas v. Hendricks, the Court upheld this new commitment model.6 In the wake of that case, other states (a total of twenty to date) and the federal government enacted SVP laws.7 Since 1990, the 1. See infra notes 58-64 and accompanying text. 2. WASH. REV. CODE ANN. §§ 71.09.010 to .09.903 (West 2014); see infra notes 78-84 and accompanying text. 3. See infra notes 63-79 and accompanying text. 4. See, e.g., KAN. STAT. ANN. §§ 59-29a01 to 29a24 (West 2008); WIS. STAT. §§ 980.01 to .14 (2013). 5. Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 350 (1997). 6. Id. at 371. 7. Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, Pub. L. No. 109-248, 120 Stat. 587 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 16901 (2012)). ARIZ. REV. STAT. ANN. §§ 36-3701 to - 3717 (2009); CAL. WELF. & INST. CODE §§ 6600-6609.3 (West 2010); D.C. CODE §§ 22-3803 to 3811 (2013); FLA. STAT. ANN. §§ 394.910-.932 (West 2011); 725 ILL. COMP. STAT. ANN. 207/1 to /99 (West 2006); IOWA CODE ANN. §§ 229a.1 to .16 (West 2014); KAN. STAT. ANN. §§ 59-29a01 to -29a24 (West 2008); MASS. GEN. LAWS ch. 123a, §§ 1-16 (West 2003); 2007 MINN. STAT. ANN. § 253d.01 to .36 (West & Supp. 2009); MO. ANN. STAT. §§ 632.480-.513 (West 2014); NEB. REV. STAT. ANN. §§ 71-1201 to -1226