Sex offenders can be kept in prison, justices rule

A new Supreme Court ruling allows federal officials to indefinitely hold inmates considered "sexually dangerous" after their prison terms are complete.

See this article for a full description:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37190594/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts

It strikes me that this is a very dangerous kind of power to give to federal officials. The problem is that the question of whether someone is "sexually dangerous" or not is subjective and hence this opens the door to arbitrary usage of this.

It would seem to me that this ruling could seriously undermine our whole system of criminal justice, our system of jury trials where the holding (or not) of a person is determined by a judge and jury - not "federal officials."

If someone can be held for being "sexually dangerous" that what about holding someone based on some other kind of "dangerousness".

How about if federal officials deem someone "violent and dangerous" and hold him on that basis. What's so special about "sexually dangerous", it seems "violent and dangerous" is just as bad. What about dangerous in other ways. What about a known gang member.

The problem is that the government is being given arbitrary power here. "Federal officials" somewhere determine the outcome not a judge and jury.

We are seeing some basic tenets of our criminal justice system come under assault from both sides really. Bush essentially repealed Habeas Corpus in cases of "terrorism" meaning someone can be held with no charges, and now the supreme court has ruled someone can continue to be held if they are deemed "sexually dangerous."

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the importance and centrality of the jury trial is being chipped away and in it's place comes arbitrary decisions by "federal officials".

Particularly disturbing is Elena Kagan's role in this ruling as well as her reasoning:
"Solicitor General Elena Kagan successfully argued the government's case in front of the Supreme Court. Kagan has now been nominated to replace the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Kagan in January compared the government's power to commit sexual predators to its power to quarantine federal inmates whose sentences have expired but have a highly contagious and deadly disease.

"Would anybody say that the federal government would not have Article I power to effect that kind of public safety measure? And the exact same thing is true here. This is exactly what Congress is doing here," she said. "

So the justification is "public safety?" "Public safety" voids a key element of the the sentence (it's end!) and renders moot a presumption of innocence? If you are going to base the reasoning on "public safety" then it opens the door for application of this to all sorts of things. How about someone with a history of drunken driving accidents.

Elements in our government that really really want to hold someone (for whatever reason) would seem to have picked up some pretty big trump cards over the past couple of years.