U.S. v. Comstock

The Supreme Court has agreed to rule on the constitutionality of a 2005 law giving federal officials authority to order the long-term confinement of individuals considered to be sexually dangerous.

A provision of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 authorizes the federal government to seek court-ordered, open-ended civil commitment of any "sexually dangerous person" already in U.S. custody.

The case concerns a former innmate, Graydon Earl Comstock, who has been confined to a federal penitentiary in Butner, N.C., for more than two years after completing his three-year sentence for receiving child pornography. Comstock has no firm release date.

He and four other inmates in the Butner penitentiary filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, challenging the government's authority to detain them indefinitely under §4248. In the cases of all five inmates, the federal government's confinement extended beyond the end of their prison terms.

In 2007, the district court ruled in favor of Comstock, finding the government had exceeded its authority.

Last January, a three-judge panel on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed the district court’s decision.

"The Constitution does not empower the federal government to confine a person solely because of asserted 'sexual dangerousness' when the government need not allege (let alone prove) that this 'dangerousness' violates any federal law," wrote Judge Diana Gribbon Motz for the panel.

In May, a panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the same provision of act, ruling that Congress had the authority under the Constitution's Necessary and Proper Clause to provide for civil commitment as a means of preventing future sex crimes.

Question presented: Whether Congress had the constitutional authority to enact 18 U.S.C. 4248, which authorizes court-ordered civil commitment by the federal government of (1) “sexually dangerous” persons who are already in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, but who are coming to the end of their federal prison sentences, and (2) “sexually dangerous” persons who are in the custody of the Attorney General because they have been found mentally incompetent to stand trial.