SCOTUS: Sex offenders can be held indefinitely

And "sex offender" can mean an 18-year-old with a 16-year-old girlfriend.

Or one of poin's naughty teachers.

To in any way put this on a plane above murder is just staggering.

 

Nobody, of course, is more of a throw-away-the-key guy than me, but if the "powers that be" feel the sex assault is so heinous and the probability of recidivism so high, then the sentence should reflect that in the first place.

Make the default sentence for any violent sexual assault life imprisonment. That way, in order to be paroled, the mental health authorities would have to evaluate the perp as "rehabilitated."

And I can't believe Scalia and Thomas are the dissenters; I would have thought they'd be right on board with this kind of ruling.

AND the idea that "sex offenders" should be treated, legally, more draconially than "murderers," is just nuts.

 

You are given a punishment at your trial, and once the punishment is served, you are free to go. If they feel you need help in a mental institution, not a prison, then that is where you will be released after your prison term is over.

You want them locked up for life, you do it at their original sentencing.

It is the difficult scenario that test your resolve on a topic, and this is difficult.

The direction this country is heading scares me to death.

 

To a lot of people, it is.

 

I'm on the wrong planet, then.

 

Anyone who is not chilled to the core by this decision isn't paying attention.

Sex offenders are heinous individuals and deserve every bit of punishment and scorn that can be legally heaped on them. However, the idea that you can now hold someone indefinitely after their sentence is up is a road we do not want to go down. And if you think this will stop at sex offenders you're a fool.

 

Yeah and you can also be labeled a sex offender as a 17-year-old having sex with a 15-year-old in some states.

 

I know this was brought up earlier, so here's the relevant information:

http://www.csom.org/pubs/mythsfacts.html

This is not an easy issue, but we should at least be debating it with the right facts in place.

 

Re: SCOTUS: Sex offenders can be held indefinitely

The cynical me says that a black convicted of a sex crime in Alabama will from now on be in prison for life. And someone facing a sex charge would be insane to plea bargain, thus further clogging the courts

 

Well put by both of you. This is dangerous stuff even if it wasn't ridiculous to lump all sex offenders into one category.

 

This. 100 percent.