Kansas v. Crane

Summary

The Supreme Court vacated the Kansas Supreme Court's judgment reversing Michael Crane's civil commitment under the Kansas Sexually Violent Predator Act, agreeing with Kansas that the state court had read Hendricks in an overly restrictive manner by demanding a finding that the defendant is completely unable to control his dangerous behavior. The Court held that Hendricks set forth no requirement of total or complete lack of control, yet the Constitution does not permit commitment of this type of dangerous sexual offender without any lack-of-control determination: there must be proof of serious difficulty in controlling behavior which, viewed in light of the nature of the psychiatric diagnosis and the severity of the mental abnormality, suffices to distinguish the dangerous sexual offender from the dangerous but typical recidivist. The Court further held that Hendricks drew no constitutional line between purely 'emotional' and 'volitional' impairments and expressly left open whether commitment based solely on emotional abnormality would be constitutional. Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, dissented, contending the majority misread Hendricks, that the Act as written already satisfies substantive due process, and that the new contextual test is unworkably indeterminate; he would have reversed rather than vacated the state court's judgment.