"California court wants proof on confining sex predators"

The title of this post is the headline of this article in the San Diego Union-Tribune discussing this interesting new ruling in People v. McKee from the California Supreme Court concerning the state's sex offender civil commitment statute. Here is the report's account of the decision:

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state might not be able to indefinitely hold sexually violent predators in jail, as authorized under a 2006 proposition approved by voters.

In a 5-2 decision in a case from San Diego, the court said state prosecutors had to provide more evidence that treating sexually violent predators differently than others who are also held under civil commitment rules — such as mentally disordered offenders — does not violate the equal protection guarantees of the constitution They sent the case back to San Diego for such a hearing.

The majority opinion in McKee gets started this way:

Proposition 83, passed by the voters in November of 2006, modified the terms by which sexually violent predators (SVP's) can be released from civil commitment under the Sexually Violent Predators Act (SVP Act or Act; Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6600 et seq.).  In essence, it changes the commitment from a two-year term, renewable only if the People prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the individual still meets the definition of an SVP, to an indefinite commitment from which the individual can be released if he proves by a preponderance of the evidence that he no longer is an SVP.

Defendant, who is subject to indeterminate commitment pursuant to Proposition 83, challenges the law on several constitutional grounds: that it violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and that it violates the ex post facto clause, article I, section 10 of the United States Constitution.  Like the Court of Appeal, we conclude that defendant's due process and ex post facto challenges are without merit. As for the equal protection challenge, we conclude that the state has not yet carried its burden of demonstrating why SVP's, but not any other ex-felons subject to civil commitment, such as mentally disordered offenders, are subject to indefinite commitment.  As explained below, we remand to the trial court to permit the People the opportunity to justify the differential treatment in accord with established equal protection principles. (See In re Moye (1978) 22 Cal.3d 457.)