Title: In the Matter of the Commitment of W.Z.

State: new-jersey

Issuer: New Jersey Supreme Court

Document:

W.Z. appeals from a judgment finding him to be a sexually violent predator under the Act and committing him to the Special Offenders Unit at the Northern Regional Unit (NRU) in Kearny. The Court addresses the Act and the proceedings involving W.Z. in the light of the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Kansas v. Crane, 534 U.S. 407, 122 S. Ct. 867, 151 L. Ed. 2d 856 (2002), which was decided while W.Z. s appeal to this Court was pending. Crane held that it is unconstitutional to civilly commit a sex offender involuntarily without making a determination about the person s lack of control over his or her sexually violent behavior. W.Z. has an extensive criminal and juvenile record, including three sexual offenses against women, the first of which occurred in 1982 when W.Z. was sixteen years old and the others occurring in 1989 and 1994. W.Z. acknowledges that based on his record, he has been convicted of a sexually violent offense, one of the requirements for commitment under the SVPA. The proceedings to commit W.Z. under the SVPA were initiated by the State in December 1999 when W.Z. was nearing the end of his sentence for the 1994 criminal sexual contact conviction. He was committed temporarily to the NRU based on two clinical certifications by physicians. Additional psychological testimony was presented at the final hearing in April 2000. The psychologists who testified at the hearing agreed that W.Z. does not have a sexual compulsion but found him to suffer from various disorders that gave him a propensity to act antisocially and violently. The expert who testified on behalf of W.Z. concluded that W.Z. possessed a great likelihood of future violent behavior and anticipated that twenty percent of W.Z. s future violent behavior would involve acts of sexual violence. All but one of the five actuarial risk-assessment tools used by the experts placed W.Z. within a high range of risk of repeating his sexually criminal conduct. The fifth placed him in the moderate range.. The trial court found that the record contained clear and convincing evidence that W.Z. was unable to control his dangerous sexual behavior and that he was likely to commit additional sexual offenses in the reasonably foreseeable future. Accordingly, the court ordered W.Z. committed to the NRU. W.Z. appealed to the Appellate Division, which rejected his contention that substantive due process bars the commitment of a sex offender who has volitional but not emotional or other control over sexually dangerous behavior. Relying on Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 117 S. Ct. 2072, 138 L. Ed. 2d 501 (1997), the court held that involuntary commitment under the SVPA is not limited to sex offenders who have a total lack of volitional control over their dangerous sexual behavior. The Appellate Division declared that a trial court must find clear and convincing evidence that a person has a propensity, inclination or tendency to commit acts of sexual violence in order to determine whether an offender is likely to engage in acts of sexual violence. The Appellate Division found support in the record for the expert s findings that W.Z. is highly likely to use sex as a weapon, concluded that W.Z. is highly likely to reoffend in the reasonably foreseeable future, and affirmed the SVPA commitment order. The Court granted W.Z. s petition for certification. HELD: For a sex offender to be found likely to engage in acts of sexual violence so as to meet one of the requirements for involuntary commitment under the New Jersey Sexually Violent Predator Act, the State must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the person has serious difficulty controlling his or her harmful sexual behavior such that it is highly likely that the person will not control his or her sexually violent behavior and will reoffend. The Act does not violate substantive due process provided such findings are made. 1. According to the United States Supreme Court in Crane, substantive due process requires some lack-of-control determination, and proof of serious difficulty in controlling behavior. The Court left the states considerable discretion to define the mental abnormalities and personality disorders that make a person eligible for commitment and also left to the states the ability to determine the extent to which a sex offender must lack control before being found to have serious difficulty in controlling behavior. (pp.20-23) 2. Under the SVPA, the mental abnormality or personality disorder a sex offender is found to suffer from must affect the person s ability to control his or her sexually harmful conduct. The statute does not require that there be a complete loss of control; the Court interprets the Crane serious difficulty standard as requiring a substantial inability to control conduct. The language of the SVPA suggests that the Legislature intended such a standard. A finding of sexual compulsion is not necessary. (pp.23-27) 3. The dangerousness prong of the SVPA includes a requirement that the offender be likely to engage in acts of sexual violence. A person may be considered to pose a threat to the health and safety of others if found by clear and convincing evidence to have serious difficulty in controlling his or her harmful behavior such that it is highly likely that the individual will not control his or her sexually violent behavior and will reoffend. Similarly, a person committed under the SVPA should be released when a court is convinced that he or she will not have serious difficulty controlling sexually violent behavior and will be highly likely to comply with the plan for that person s safe reintegration into the community. (pp.28-29) 4. In determining whether the sex offender is likely to engage in acts of sexual violence, a trial court should consider the likelihood in the reasonably foreseeable future and need not make a more specific finding concerning precisely when the offender will recidivate. It is the person s present serious difficulty with control that is significant. (pp.29-33) 5. As decided by the Court in the companion case, IMO the Commitment of R.S., actuarial instruments may be used by experts testifying in commitment hearings about a sex offender s risk of reoffense. (p.33). JUDGMENT of the Appellate Division is AFFIRMED as MODIFIED and the matter is REMANDED to the trial court to determine whether W.Z. s mental condition causes the required degree of inability to control his sexually violent behavior to justify commitment under the SVPA. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES STEIN, COLEMAN, LONG, and ZAZALLI join in JUSTICE LAVECCHIA S opinion. JUSTICE VERNIERO did not participate. IN THE MATTER OF THE COMMITMENT OF W.Z. Argued January 28, 2002 Decided July 11, 2002 On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division, whose opinion is reported at 339 N.J. Super. 549 (2001). Joan D. Van Pelt, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant W.Z. (Peter A. Garcia, Acting Public Defender, attorney). Nancy Kaplen, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent State of New Jersey (Peter C. Harvey, Acting Attorney General, attorney; Mary Beth Wood, Deputy Attorney General, on the briefs). The opinion of the Court was delivered by LaVECCHIA, J. In 1998 the Legislature passed the New Jersey Sexually Violent Predator Act (SVPA or Act), N.J.S.A. 30:4-27.24 to 27.38; L. 1998, c. 71, effective August 12, 1999. We are informed that since its enactment the State has used the Act to civilly commit approximately 225 sex offenders. This appeal presents our first opportunity to consider a challenge to the Act s constitutionality. W.Z. appeals from a judgment finding him to be a sexually violent predator under the SVPA and committing him to the Special Offenders Unit at the Northern Regional Unit (NRU) in Kearny, New Jersey. In its decision below, the Appellate Division rejected W.Z. s constitutional and other challenges and upheld W.Z. s commitment. While W.Z. s appeal to this Court was pending, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Kansas v. Crane, 534 U.S. 407, 122 S. Ct. 867, 151 L. Ed. 2d 856 (2002). In that case the Court clarified the substantive due process limitations on a state s ability to identify the mental abnormalities that render a sex offender eligible for civil commitment because of his or her dangerousness. Specifically, Crane held that a state may not civilly commit a sex offender without making a determination about the person s lack of control over his or her sexually violent behavior. Id. at , 122 S. Ct. at , 151 L. Ed 2d at . In so holding, the Court rejected the claim that a sex offender s lack of control must be demonstrated to be total or complete; rather, the Court acknowledged a state s authority to commit those sex offenders who have serious difficulty in controlling [their] behavior. Ibid. The substantive due process limitations expressed in Crane inform our consideration of this challenge to the constitutionality of the SVPA. B. Temporal Context In determining his likelihood to engage in acts of sexual violence if not confined in a secure facility for control, care and treatment, W.Z. urges this Court to require the State to prove that it is substantially likely that the acts would occur within the reasonably foreseeable future. The courts below held that to be committed an individual must be determined to be likely to engage in acts of sexual violence in the reasonably foreseeable future, employing a sensible temporal context to the threat of harm posed by the sex offender. See IMO Commitment of W.Z., supra, 339 N.J. Super. at 574-75. However, the trial court explained the likely standard in the phrase likely to engage in acts of sexual violence as if comparable to a preponderance, or fifty-one percent chance of probability, and the Appellate Division accepted that explanation, although with additional explication. Id. at 578-80 (explaining that court must find by clear and convincing evidence that person has a propensity, inclination or tendency, to commit acts of sexual violence and must establish by clear and convincing evidence the degree of such a propensity ). The Appellate Division rejected W.Z. s argument that the State must prove that an individual is "substantially likely to engage in acts of sexual violence in order to satisfy the clear and convincing burden of proof required for commitment under the SVPA. Id. at 580. The court viewed the two concepts probability of reoffending and burden of proof as distinct, stating that they can coexist and operate independently. Id. at 579. That they are distinct is correct. The clear and convincing burden of proof required in any civil commitment matter applies to all trial court findings. That does not mean that in explaining the degree of likelihood of future dangerousness, the Act's burden of proof terminology controls the substance of the required finding. A difficulty arises here because the courts below linked the probability of reoffending to a description that suggests a quantum of proof, calling it a preponderance, or a more than fifty-percent chance. Those descriptions can cause confusion where the parties must present and the trial court must evaluate difficult, nuanced medical evidence and reduce it to specific findings affecting a person s liberty. Predictions of future dangerousness have been for some time a permitted basis for restriction of a citizen's liberty when that dangerousness is tethered to a finding of mental illness or abnormality. Hubbart, supra, 69 P.2d at 600 n.26 (noting that United States Supreme Court has long upheld civil commitment statutes "where dangerousness is expressed in terms of a 'probability,' 'threat,' or similar risk that a person who is presently mentally disturbed will inflict harm upon himself or others in the future if not confined" (citations omitted)). However, we can and must attempt to be as precise as possible when describing the required level of likelihood of that harmful behavior. Because we see no basis for separating the court s determination of a person s likelihood to engage in acts of sexual violence from the court s assessment of the person s loss of control over his or her harmful behavior specifically, we are persuaded that we should construe the term likely to engage in acts of sexual violence in light of the constitutionally required standard for loss of control. To be committed under the SVPA an individual must be proven to be a threat to the health and safety of others because of the likelihood of his or her engaging in sexually violent acts. Pursuant to our holding today, the State must prove that threat by demonstrating that the individual has serious difficulty in controlling sexually harmful behavior such that it is highly likely that he or she will not control his or her sexually violent behavior and will reoffend. Those findings incorporate a temporal sense that will require an assessment of the reasonably foreseeable future. No more specific finding concerning precisely when an individual will recidivate need be made by the trial court. Commitment is based on the individual s danger to self and others because of his or her present serious difficulty with control over dangerous sexual behavior. The Act requires annual court review hearings on the need for continued involuntary commitment. Those periodic reviews will allow adequate opportunity to assess fresh information concerning the committee s dangerousness. See In re Ewoldt, 634 N.W.2d 622, 624 (Iowa 2001) (holding that Iowa SVPA s provision of annual periodic reviews for committees does not suggest that upon initial commitment State must prove that risk of reoffense would otherwise occur within one year). C. Use of Actuarial Instruments W.Z. also challenges the use of actuarial instruments developed to assess a sex offender s risk of reoffense by comparing him or her to the risk characteristics of groups of other sex offenders monitored for recidivism. He contends that those predictions of an individual s risk group were not the equivalent of an assessment of his particular risk of reoffense. W.Z. s argument is the same as that addressed in the companion case, IMO Commitment of R.S., 339 N.J. Super. 507, 511 (App. Div. 2002), also decided today. Our holding in R.S., permitting the use of such instruments by experts testifying in commitment hearings, requires that we reject W.Z.'s contentions concerning the unreliability of those actuarial instruments. Ibid. Accordingly, W.Z. s final contention is without merit. NO. A-17 SEPTEMBER TERM 2001 ON CERTIFICATION TO Appellate Division, Superior Court IN THE MATTER OF THE COMMITMENT OF W.Z. DECIDED July 11, 2002 Chief Justice Poritz PRESIDING OPINION BY Justice LaVecchia CONCURRING OPINION BY DISSENTING OPINION BY