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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

Nos. 15-CO-38 & 15-CO-240

DONNELL TILLEY, APPELLANT,

V.

UNITED STATES, APPELLEE.

Appeals from the Superior Court

of the District of Columbia

(CF1-5845-09)

(Hon. William M. Jackson, Trial Judge)

(Argued September 27, 2017 Decided October 1, 2020)

Adam G. Thompson, Public Defender Service, with whom Samia Fam, 

Public Defender Service, was on the brief, for appellant. 

James A. Ewing, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Channing D. 

Phillips, United States Attorney at the time the brief was filed, and Elizabeth 

Trosman and Colleen Kennedy, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the 

brief, for appellee. 

Before BLACKBURNE-RIGSBY, Chief Judge, and GLICKMAN and THOMPSON, 

Associate Judges.

Opinion for the court by Associate Judge GLICKMAN.

Dissenting opinion by Associate Judge THOMPSON at page 39.
2

GLICKMAN, Associate Judge: Donnell Tilley appeals an order of the 

Superior Court civilly committing him indefinitely to St. Elizabeths Hospital, a 

mental institution, under the District of Columbia’s seventy-year-old Sexual 

Psychopath Act (the SPA).

1 Mr. Tilley contends that his commitment – which was 

not based on any finding of a dangerous mental illness, mental disorder, or other

mental abnormality – must be vacated because the SPA is unconstitutional both on 

its face and as applied to him, and because the evidence did not support the finding 

that he is a “sexual psychopath” within the meaning of the SPA. 

The SPA provides for the involuntary, indefinite civil confinement in a 

mental institution of persons who are “not insane” but are thought to be too 

dangerous to remain at large based on their “course of repeated misconduct in 

sexual matters.”2

 The statute provides for confinement of such persons as “sexual 

psychopaths” without proof that they have any mental disorder or abnormality; 

instead, “not insane” has been construed to impose the condition that they not be 

mentally ill. For this and other reasons, the SPA’s constitutionality has long been 

 1

 D.C. Code § 22-3803 et seq. (2012 Repl.). Mr. Tilley also noted an appeal 

from a supplemental order that provided for him to be re-evaluated for annual court 

reviews of his commitment. This court consolidated the two appeals sua sponte. 

2

 Id. § 22-3803(1).
3

in doubt; fifty years ago, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of 

Columbia Circuit observed that the preventive-detention nature of the SPA posed 

“constitutional issues of the gravest magnitude.”3

 Until now, however, because of 

the rarity of commitment proceedings under the SPA, the question of its 

constitutionality did not come before this court. But the Supreme Court resolved 

the main issue two decades ago when it held that, to comport with substantive due 

process, civil commitment of dangerous sex offenders must be limited to those 

who suffer from a mental disease, mental disorder, or mental abnormality that 

makes it seriously difficult for them to control their dangerous behavior and be 

responsible for their sexual misconduct. Based on that precedent, we conclude that 

the SPA is unconstitutional on its face for the reason that it requires no finding in 

any case of a mental disease, disorder, or abnormality causing such serious 

impairment of sex offenders’ ability to control their behavior.

Because we agree that the SPA is unconstitutional on its face, we do not 

reach Mr. Tilley’s other claims.

 3

 Millard v. Harris, 406 F.2d 964, 973 (D.C. Cir. 1968).
4

I.

On March 13, 2009, the United States charged Mr. Tilley by criminal 

complaint in Superior Court with one count of first-degree child sexual abuse4 of 

his daughter, V.W. After a court-ordered screening, the court found Mr. Tilley

incompetent to stand trial and committed him to St. Elizabeths Hospital for 

treatment to “restore” him to competency. Seventeen months later, after Hospital 

psychiatrists concluded that Mr. Tilley was intellectually disabled and that further 

competency treatment would be futile, the court scheduled a Jackson hearing 

pursuant to D.C. Code § 24-531.06 (2012 Repl.).

5

 Had that hearing been held, and 

if the court had found that Mr. Tilley would be unlikely to attain competency in the 

foreseeable future, then § 24-531.06(c)(4) would have required the court to release 

him unless the government promptly petitioned for his civil commitment on 

 4

 D.C. Code § 22-3008 (2012 Repl. & 2020 Supp.). 

5

 Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715 (1972), held that a criminal defendant 

may be committed to a mental institution for the purpose of restoring his 

competency only for “the reasonable period of time necessary to determine 

whether there is a substantial probability that he will attain that capacity in the 

foreseeable future.” Id. at 738. At the end of that time period, a hearing is 

normally held to determine whether further efforts to bring the defendant to 

competency would be futile. If the court finds that to be so, then the state “must 

either institute the customary civil commitment proceeding that would be required 

to commit indefinitely any other citizen, or release the defendant.” Id.
5

grounds of dangerousness due to mental illness or intellectual disability pursuant to 

either the Hospitalization of Persons with Mental Illness Act (commonly referred 

to as the Ervin Act)6 or the Citizens with Intellectual Disabilities Act.7

 Section 24-

531.06 does not mention the SPA as providing an alternative civil commitment 

procedure the government may pursue when a criminal defendant is found to be 

incompetent.

Mr. Tilley’s scheduled Jackson hearing was not held, however, and the court 

made no determination as to his continuing incompetency to stand trial. Instead, in 

February 2011, the government filed with the court a statement initiating a 

proceeding to commit Mr. Tilley under the SPA as a sexual psychopath.8

 The 

filing of the statement automatically stayed the criminal proceeding against Mr. 

Tilley.9

 

 6

 See D.C. Code § 21-541 et seq. (2012 Repl.).

7

 See D.C. Code §§ 7-1303.04(b-1), -1304.06a (2018 Repl. & 2020 Supp.).

8

 See D.C. Code § 22-3804(b).

9

 Id. § 22-3810. The government expressly “does not concede either that 

[Mr. Tilley] was in fact incompetent at the time of his SPA hearing or that he 

would be deemed incompetent at any future Jackson hearing.” 
6

The SPA defines a “sexual psychopath” as “a person, not insane, who by a 

course of repeated misconduct in sexual matters has evidenced such lack of power 

to control his or her sexual impulses as to be dangerous to other persons because he 

or she is likely to attack or otherwise inflict injury, loss, pain, or other evil on the 

objects of his or her desire.”10 The term “sexual psychopath” is not itself a term 

with a recognized psychiatric or psychological meaning, and its statutory definition

does not require a finding of any kind of mental disease, disorder, or abnormality. 

Rather, as discussed more fully below, the statutory “not insane” condition has 

been authoritatively construed to require, among other things, a finding that the 

person is “not mentally ill,” with the understanding that “mental illness” is 

accorded “a liberal construction” coextensive with the scope of that term in the 

Ervin Act.11 In other words, a person cannot be committed under the SPA if that 

person’s dangerous “lack of power to control his or her sexual impulses” is 

attributable to mental illness (broadly defined). By its terms, the SPA predicates 

the “lack of control” finding solely on the “course of repeated misconduct in sexual 

matters” and not on any disabling mental condition.

 10 Id. § 22-3803(1).

11 Millard, 406 F.2d at 968, 971 (emphasis added). 
7

The government’s February 2011 statement alleged that Mr. Tilley had 

sexually abused his daughter V.W. on multiple occasions, including the March 

2009 incident charged in the indictment. It further alleged that Mr. Tilley

previously had abused two other young girls, A.T. and L.T., in 1996, and A.T. 

again in 1998.12 In accordance with the procedures outlined in the SPA, the court 

appointed two psychiatrists to examine Mr. Tilley and evaluate “whether the 

patient is a sexual psychopath.”13 In July 2012, the psychiatrists – Dr. Robert T.M. 

Phillips and Dr. Raymond Patterson – submitted reports concluding that Mr. Tilley 

was not insane and that he met the statutory criteria for being a sexual psychopath. 

Upon receiving these reports, the court scheduled an evidentiary hearing on the 

issue.14 Prior to the hearing, the government amended its statement to add a charge 

that Mr. Tilley had abused a young boy, M.C., between 2001 and 2003.

 12 The 1998 allegation was the subject of a misdemeanor charge against Mr. 

Tilley in 1999, which the government dismissed in 2001.

13 D.C. Code § 22-3806(a). The SPA refers to an alleged sexual psychopath 

as the “patient.” Id. § 22-3803(3). Although the SPA requires that two 

psychiatrists examine the “patient” and report their conclusions as to whether he is 

a sexual psychopath, the statute does not require that the psychiatrists diagnose him 

with any mental illness, disorder, abnormality, or condition of any kind. Rather, to 

conclude that the subject is a sexual psychopath, the psychiatrists must conclude 

that he is not “insane” and hence is not mentally ill. 

14 See id. § 22-3807 (requiring a hearing if both psychiatrists state that the 

patient is a sexual psychopath).
8

The SPA hearing began on February 22, 2013. Collectively, the four 

identified victims testified that Mr. Tilley had sexually assaulted them on multiple 

occasions between 1996 and 2009. Their testimony was corroborated by family 

members and other witnesses. Based on this evidence, the court found the 

following facts, which Mr. Tilley disputed below but does not dispute in this 

appeal. First, on an evening in 1996, Mr. Tilley sexually assaulted nine-year-old 

A.T. and her cousin, ten-year-old L.T. This incident occurred at their 

grandmother’s house while the girls were sleeping; Mr. Tilley was a family friend 

whom the children referred to as a “cousin.” Second, Mr. Tilley again sexually 

assaulted A.T. one or two years later. This incident also took place at the 

grandmother’s residence. Third, on multiple occasions between 1997 and 2003, 

Mr. Tilley sexually assaulted M.C., who was born in 1994. During this period, Mr. 

Tilley was living with M.C. and his family. Fourth, Mr. Tilley raped his 14-yearold daughter, V.W., while she was visiting him in March 2009. 

To establish that Mr. Tilley was a sexual psychopath based on this history of 

child molestation, the government presented the testimony of the two psychiatrists 

who had evaluated him.
9

Dr. Phillips opined that Mr. Tilley met the criteria for being a sexual 

psychopath because (1) he did not suffer from a psychosis or other mental illness 

(“a diagnosis on Axis One”15) and therefore was “not insane” within the meaning 

of the SPA; and (2) the “pattern” of past sexually abusive behavior shown by the

“four allegations” against Mr. Tilley “support[ed] the notion of repetition, 

compulsion and inability to control the impulse, and the subsequent risk . . . to the 

individuals who are the subject of those actions.” 

Although Mr. Tilley’s IQ testing showed him to have a “mild” intellectual 

disability, Dr. Phillips said he could not conclude that Mr. Tilley’s sexually 

abusive behavior was a “byproduct” of that disability. Dr. Phillips noted that Mr. 

Tilley “accommodates very well” and his “functional capacities are certainly . . . 

on the higher end of that diagnosis.” Dr. Phillips also was not persuaded that Mr. 

 15 Under the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical 

Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. rev. 2000) [hereinafter, “DSM-IV”], which 

was current at the time of the doctors’ testimony, Axis I referred to all the various 

clinical disorders and other conditions that may be the focus of clinical attention 

except personality disorders and what was then referred to as mental retardation, 

which were listed on Axis II. See DSM-IV at 27-28. DSM-IV cautioned that 

“[t]he coding of Personality Disorders on Axis II should not be taken to imply that 

their pathogenesis or range of appropriate treatment is fundamentally different 

from that for the disorders coded on Axis I.” Id. at 28. The next edition of the 

Manual, issued in 2013, dropped the multiaxial coding system altogether. See

American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental 

Disorders 16 (5th ed. 2013). 
10

Tilley met the criteria for a diagnosis of pedophilia, which he said was a 

personality disorder rather than an Axis I mental illness.

16 But Dr. Phillips 

considered the “debate” about whether Mr. Tilley had a pedophilic disorder to be 

“irrelevant” to the issue at hand because the SPA “does not require a finding of 

pedophilia;” it “really is focused,” he said, “on whether or not there’s an Axis One 

diagnosis [which would preclude a sexual psychopathy finding], and whether or 

not this individual is engaged in repetitive behavior which cannot be controlled.” 

In other words, Dr. Phillips found Mr. Tilley to be a sexual psychopath solely

because Mr. Tilley does not suffer from what he considered to be a mental illness 

for SPA purposes and “his behaviors comport with the statutory scheme.” As Dr. 

Phillips emphasized, “sexual psychopath” is “not a psychiatric diagnosis at all.” 

 16 Dr. Phillips was mistaken about the axial classification of pedophilia. In 

actuality, DSM-IV listed pedophilia and other paraphilias on Axis I, and not with 

the personality disorders on Axis II. See DSM-IV, supra note 15, at 28; see also, 

e.g., United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1199 n.27 (11th Cir. 2010) (“Under the 

DSM IV TR, pedophilia is a paraphilia and an Axis I disorder.”); State v. R.D.G., 

66 P.3d 560, 563 (Or. Ct. App. 2003) (“The mental health professionals disagreed 

. . . as to whether paraphilias properly should be classified as mental disorders. 

Paraphilias are ‘Axis I’ diagnoses in the [DSM-IV (4th ed. 1994)].”). It should be 

noted, however, that the DSM-IV classification of pedophilia as an Axis I disorder 

does not mean Dr. Phillips erred in stating that pedophilia is not a mental illness. 

In fact, the parties on appeal dispute whether pedophilia should be viewed as a 

mental illness for Ervin Act purposes. This is not a dispute we are prepared to

resolve as a matter of law. But the question need not concern us in this case, as it 

does not affect our holding that the SPA is unconstitutional on its face and cannot 

be applied to Mr. Tilley.
11

Dr. Patterson’s testimony generally agreed with that of Dr. Phillips, except 

that in Dr. Patterson’s opinion, Mr. Tilley did meet the diagnostic criteria for 

pedophilia as well as the criteria for mild intellectual disability.17 Nonetheless, in 

Dr. Patterson’s opinion, Mr. Tilley met the criteria for commitment under the SPA

because he was “not insane”18 and his repeated acts of child sexual abuse 

amounted to a “pattern of conduct” demonstrating a “high” risk of continuing to 

inflict great harm on children if he were to be released. The risk was heightened 

because Mr. Tilley was “opportunistic” and was not uncomfortable with, or 

motivated to change, his predatory behavior. Dr. Patterson did not testify that Mr. 

Tilley’s pedophilic disorder impaired his ability to control his sexual impulses. He 

explained that while “[p]art of the issue is impulse control,” that does not mean 

pedophiles lack the power to control their sexual impulses.

19 

 17 Dr. Patterson “emphasize[d]” that Mr. Tilley’s “mental retardation” is 

“mild” and that he is “quite functional.” 

18 Like Dr. Phillips, Dr. Patterson was of the mistaken view that pedophilia 

was not an Axis I diagnosis in DSM-IV. 

19 “But if all pedophiles . . . have total lack of control,” Dr. Patterson 

testified, “then any time . . . they see a child they’d run over and grab the child. 

That’s not what happens. They plan, they scheme. They take advantage of 

opportunistic situations . . . .” 
12

Based on the psychiatrists’ testimony (which the court for the most part

credited) and the multiple incidents of child sexual abuse the government had 

proved, the court found by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Tilley is a 

sexual psychopath. Specifically, the court concluded that (1) Mr. Tilley is “not 

insane” because he did not have a mental illness, and though he “suffers from a 

mild intellectual disability and possibly pedophilia, [he] nonetheless functions 

fairly well in society despite his cognitive limitations”20; (2) Mr. Tilley had 

“engaged in a course of repeated sexual misconduct, which evinces an inability to 

control his impulses”; (3) Mr. Tilley’s “prior sexual abuse of A.T., L.T., M.C., and 

V.W. demonstrates that he cannot control his deviant sexual impulses,” indicating 

a “high risk of re-offending” if he were not confined21; and (4) if Mr. Tilley were 

to continue to abuse children, the “magnitude” of the expected psychological harm 

to those children would be “substantial” and “devastating.” 

Having found Mr. Tilley to be a sexual psychopath, the court ordered that he 

be committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital until he has “sufficiently recovered so as 

 20 As indicated by its use of the word “possibly,” the court did not find that 

Mr. Tilley suffers from pedophilia. 

21 The court added that the risk shown by Mr. Tilley’s “pattern of sexual 

deviancy” was exacerbated by his “persistent denials of having engaged in any 

sexual misconduct and his refusals to participate in treatment.” 
13

to not be dangerous to other persons.”22 The court declared that it would review 

this commitment on an annual basis to determine whether Mr. Tilley can continue 

to be confined pursuant to the SPA.23 

II.

Mr. Tilley argues that, on its face, the SPA violates substantive due process 

by authorizing civil commitment of sexually dangerous persons without a finding 

that a mental disease, disorder, or abnormality prevents or impedes them from 

controlling their dangerous behavior. The United States agrees that such a finding 

is constitutionally required, but it argues that the SPA satisfies this requirement

because its definition of a “sexual psychopath” calls for a finding that the person’s

behavior evidences a “lack of power to control” his or her dangerous sexual 

impulses.

Mr. Tilley did not raise his substantive due process challenge to the facial 

constitutionality of the SPA in the Superior Court; he presents it for the first time 

 22 D.C. Code § 22-3809.

23 The stay of the criminal proceeding against Mr. Tilley remains in effect 

until he is discharged from confinement, at which point his prosecution could be 

resumed. See id. § 22-3810. 
14

in this appeal. Normally, a claim that was not raised or passed on in the trial court 

will be “spurned” on appeal.24 This principle is “one of discretion rather than 

jurisdiction,” however.25 “[I]n ‘exceptional situations and when necessary to 

prevent a clear miscarriage of justice apparent from the record,’ we may deviate 

from the usual rule that our review is limited to issues that were properly 

preserved. . . . [We have] discretion, in the interests of justice, to consider an 

argument that is raised for the first time on appeal if the issue is purely one of law, 

particularly if the factual record is complete and a remand for further factual 

development would serve no purpose, the issue has been fully briefed, and no party 

will be unfairly prejudiced.”26 We are satisfied that Mr. Tilley’s present 

constitutional challenge to the SPA meets all those preconditions.27

 24 D.D. v. M.T., 550 A.2d 37, 48 (D.C. 1988) (quoting Miller v. Avirom, 384 

F.2d 319, 321-22 (D.C. Cir. 1967)). This is not a situation where the appellant 

seeks to resurrect on appeal a claim he affirmatively waived below.

25 District of Columbia v. Helen Dwight Reid Educ. Found., 766 A.2d 28, 

34 n.3 (D.C. 2001).

26 Id. (quoting Williams v. Gerstenfeld, 514 A.2d 1172, 1177 (D.C. 1986)). 

The government argues that if Mr. Tilley’s unpreserved constitutional challenge to 

the SPA is not waived, it is reviewable only under the four-part test for plain error 

applicable in criminal appeals. See, e.g., Kinane v. United States, 12 A.3d 23, 26 

(D.C. 2011) (“Where, as here, appellants fail to object to the constitutionality of 

[the statute] during the trial court proceedings, this court reviews appellants’ claim 

for plain error.”). But since “proceedings under the SPA [are] ‘civil’ in nature,” 

Shelton v. United States, 721 A.2d 603, 608 (D.C. 1998) (citation omitted), we 

view this as a civil appeal, in which relief may be granted on an unpreserved claim 

(continued...)
15

This is indeed an exceptional case. The unconstitutional commitment of a 

person to a mental institution for what could be the rest of his or her life is 

unquestionably a clear miscarriage of justice. The issue of the SPA’s facial 

unconstitutionality is a pure question of law. No further factual development is 

needed to answer that question. The parties have fully briefed the legal issue. No 

party will be unfairly prejudiced if we decide it at this time. We shall do so.

The challenge, it must be understood, is to the statute’s constitutionality on 

its face, which is to say, in all its applications and not merely as it has been applied 

to Mr. Tilley.28 To prevail, he “must demonstrate that the terms of the statute, 

measured against the relevant constitutional doctrine, and independent of the 

constitutionality of particular applications, contain[] a constitutional infirmity that 

 

(continued...)

that does not satisfy the plain error test, see In re Ta.L., 149 A.3d 1060, 1073 n.11 

(D.C. 2016) (en banc).

27 See, e.g., Biotechpharma, LLC v. Ludwig & Robinson, PLLC, 98 A.3d 

986, 994 (D.C. 2014) (exercising discretion to consider unpreserved legal 

challenges to the validity and constitutionality of a Bar Rule promulgated by this 

court); Pajic v. Foote Props., LLC, 72 A.3d 140, 145-46 (D.C. 2013) (reviewing 

unpreserved challenge to legality of contract provision).

28 See Conley v. United States, 79 A.3d 270, 276-77 (D.C. 2013).
16

invalidates the statute in its entirety.”29 If Mr. Tilley shows that the SPA “fails to 

require the government to prove everything the Constitution requires it to prove for 

[civil commitment] to be imposed . . . , and if the legislative design and the limits 

of the judicial function do not permit us to read the critical missing elements into 

the statute, then [Mr. Tilley] has carried his burden of showing that every 

application of [the SPA] is unconstitutional – even if a validly written statute could 

have reached [his] particular conduct [and authorized his civil commitment].”30

A. The SPA – Context, History, and Interpretation

The SPA was enacted in 1948.

31 It was part of a “wave” of sexual 

psychopath commitment legislation in this country that began in the 1930s.

32 By 

defining “sexual psychopaths” as persons whose repeated misconduct evidences 

their dangerous lack of power to control their sexual impulses, Congress employed

 29 Id. at 277 (internal quotation marks and footnote omitted).

30 Id.

31 The Sexual Psychopath Act, ch. 428, title II, §§ 201-209, 62 Stat. 347-48 

(1948).

32 See Tamara Rice Lave, Only Yesterday: The Rise and Fall of Twentieth 

Century Sexual Psychopath Laws, 69 La. L. Rev. 549, 549 (2009); see also Deirdre 

M. Smith, Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, and the Failed Experiment of 

“Sexually Violent Predator” Commitment, 67 Okla. L. Rev. 619, 627 (2015).
17

substantially the same terminology that the Supreme Court had upheld in 1940 

against a vagueness challenge to a similar Minnesota statute, except that Congress 

added the specific exclusion of “insane” persons (who were subject to civil 

commitment in the District of Columbia under a different statute).

33 At the time of 

the SPA’s enactment, the Dictionary Act defined the word “insane” to “include 

every idiot, non compos, lunatic, and insane person.”34 The Supreme Court did not 

have occasion to consider the import of such an exclusion in its 1940 decision

because the SPA’s constitutionality was not before it; nor did the Court address 

 33 See H.R. Rep. No. 1787, 80th Cong., 2d Session at 4 (1948) (“The 

constitutionality of this type of statute has been upheld by the Supreme Court of 

the United States in [Minnesota ex rel. Pearson v. Probate Court of Ramsey 

County, 309 U.S. 270 (1940)].”). As construed by the state’s highest court, the 

Minnesota “psychopathic personality” statute applied to “those persons who, by a 

habitual course of misconduct in sexual matters, have evidenced an utter lack of 

power to control their sexual impulses and who, as a result, are likely to attack or 

otherwise inflict injury, loss, pain or other evil on the objects of their uncontrolled 

and uncontrollable desire.” Minnesota ex rel. Pearson, 309 U.S. at 273 (quotation 

marks omitted). This construction of the statute, the Supreme Court held, 

“destroys the contention that it is too vague and indefinite to constitute valid 

legislation,” because the “underlying conditions, calling for evidence of past 

conduct pointing to probable consequences, are as susceptible of proof as many of 

the criteria constantly applied in prosecutions for crime.” Id. at 274. 

34 Act of July 30, 1947, ch. 388, § 1, 61 Stat. 633. (As subsequently 

amended, the word “lunatic” has been dropped and “non compos” has become 

“non compos mentis.” See 1 U.S.C. § 1 (2018).). Thus, from the outset, severely 

intellectually disabled persons also have been among those persons excluded from 

the definition of “sexual psychopath.” 
18

whether the Minnesota statute satisfied the requirements of substantive due 

process.

Congress enacted the Ervin Act in 1965.

35 It allows for the civil 

commitment of a person who is found by the court to be “mentally ill and, because

of that mental illness, is likely to injure himself or others if not committed.”36 The 

Ervin Act does not exclude sexually dangerous individuals from its purview if their 

dangerousness to others is attributable to a mental illness. It defines “mental 

illness” broadly as “a psychosis or other disease which substantially impairs the 

mental health of a person.”37 Both this court and the District of Columbia Circuit 

have accorded this definition “a liberal construction” and said it “encompass[es] a 

broad variety of mental ills,” including virtually any “abnormal mental condition 

for which medical treatment is felt to be appropriate.”38

 35 Pub. L. 89-183, Title 21, ch. 5, §§ 21-501 et seq., 79 Stat. 750 (1965).

36 D.C. Code § 21-545(b)(2) (2012 Repl.). The general civil commitment 

law in effect in the District of Columbia prior to the Ervin Act applied only to 

persons who were “insane.” See Act of Aug. 9, 1939, ch. 620, § 6, 53 Stat. 1296 

(repealed 1964).

37 D.C. Code § 21-501(5) (2020 Supp.). 

38 In re Rosell, 547 A.2d 180, 183 (D.C. 1988) (quoting Millard, 406 F.2d at 

968); see also id. at 182 (explaining that suicidal appellant’s diagnosis of “an 

adjustment disorder with depressed mood and a borderline personality disorder” 

(continued...)
19

Intellectual disability is not encompassed by the Ervin Act’s definition of 

mental illness.39 However, the subsequently enacted Citizens with Intellectual 

Disabilities Act provides, in pertinent part, that when an individual charged with a 

crime of violence or sex offense is found to be incompetent based on “at least a 

mild intellectual disability,” the District may petition the court to commit the 

individual to an appropriate facility after an evidentiary hearing and a finding that 

the individual “is likely to cause injury to others as a result of the individual’s 

intellectual disability if allowed to remain at liberty.”40

 

(continued...)

qualified her as “mentally ill” for the purpose of involuntary emergency 

hospitalization under the Ervin Act). 

39 In re Alexander, 372 F.2d 925, 927 (D.C. Cir. 1967) (“[I]t is not enough 

to commit a person under the [Ervin] Act to find that he is mentally deficient, even 

when such condition is accompanied by some antisocial behavior.”). 

40 See D.C. Code §§ 7-1301.03(14C) (defining “Individual found 

incompetent in a criminal case”), -1303.04(b-1) (District’s petition to commit

incompetent criminal defendant), -1304.06a(d) (finding by court). “Intellectual 

disability” is defined for these purposes as a “substantial limitation in capacity that 

manifests before 18 years of age and is characterized by significantly belowaverage functioning, existing concurrently with 2 or more significant limitations in 

adaptive functioning.” Id. § 7-1301.03(15A). “‘Cause injury to others as a result 

of the individual’s intellectual disability’ means cause injury to others as a result of 

deficits in adaptive functioning associated with an intellectual disability.” Id. § 7-

1301.03(2C).
20

In 1968, the District of Columbia Circuit concluded in Millard that “serious 

problems of equal protection would arise” if the government could deprive some 

mentally ill persons of the Ervin Act’s procedural protections by pursuing their 

commitment instead under the (less procedurally protective) SPA.41 To avoid 

those constitutional problems, the court held that “we must construe the words ‘not 

insane’ in the sexual psychopath statute to mean ‘not mentally ill’” within the 

meaning of the Ervin Act.42 Under this holding, a person can be committed under 

the SPA only if it is proved that the person does not have “a psychosis or other 

disease which substantially impairs the mental health of [the] person.”43 Millard’s 

holding is binding on this court,44 and we have adhered to it in the past.

45 Notably, 

in Hughes v. United States, where two psychiatrists reported that Mr. Hughes

suffered from “a mental disorder, namely, Sexual deviation, sadism, severe,” we 

 41 406 F.2d at 970 (citing Baxstrom v. Herold, 383 U.S. 107 (1966)).

42 Id. at 971.

43 Id. at 968 (citation omitted). To comply with the statutory definition of 

“insane,” it also must be proved that the person is not so seriously impaired 

cognitively as to be deemed an “idiot” or “non compos mentis.” 

44 See M.A.P. v. Ryan, 285 A.2d 310, 312 (D.C. 1971) (stating that decisions 

of the District of Columbia Circuit rendered prior to February 1, 1971, “constitute 

the case law of the District of Columbia”). 

45 See Shelton, 721 A.2d at 608 (“[T]he SPA, in excepting those ‘insane’ 

from its reach, effectively excludes all those deemed ‘mentally ill.’”). 
21

held that he was ineligible for commitment under the SPA because the reports 

indicated “quite clearly that [he was] mentally ill.”46

But if the Millard court’s construction of the SPA avoided equal protection

problems, it exposed the constitutional vulnerability of the statute on other, more 

fundamental grounds. One problem, the court noted, is that “[w]hen ‘insane’ is 

read to mean ‘mentally ill’ in the broad sense that term has come to be used in the 

statutes and court decisions of this jurisdiction, a serious question arises whether its 

language [i.e., the definition of a ‘sexual psychopath’] is not so meaningless or 

self-contradictory as to be constitutionally infirm.”47 This would be the case, the 

court pointed out, if any person whose pattern of sexual misconduct meets the 

statutory definition of a sexual psychopath by showing a dangerous lack of power 

to control his sexual impulses is, ipso facto, “mentally ill in the broad sense” and 

therefore outside the statutory definition.48 Having identified this possible 

 46 308 A.2d 238, 241 (D.C. 1973). 

47 Millard, 406 F.2d at 972.

48 Id. Otherwise put, the SPA would be “meaningless” if “the intersection 

of the class of dangerous sexual recidivists and the class of not mentally ill persons 

is the null set – i.e., . . . there is no person who is a dangerous sexual recidivist but 

who is not mentally ill.” Id. In his concurring opinion, Judge Wright put the 

question more succinctly: “is the sex psychopath described in the District of 

Columbia statute mentally ill as a matter of law and therefore outside the coverage 

(continued...)
22

problem, the court said it was “reluctant” to draw such a “sweeping” conclusion 

about the SPA in the case at hand, and it refrained from doing so. It assumed 

provisionally that it might be possible (though the court did not see how) for a 

person to be a sexual psychopath within the meaning of the SPA but not be 

mentally ill within the meaning of the Ervin Act.49 

Yet this only forced the court to acknowledge the serious substantive due 

process issue presented by the SPA, which it explained as follows: 

[W]hen “not insane” is read to mean “not mentally ill”

the sole justification for commitment under the sexual 

psychopath statute is [the committee’s] dangerousness to 

others. Since that is true, we must view the statute 

realistically as one which borders close upon preventive 

detention – detention which under our statute does not 

even require prior conviction of a criminal act.[50]

 

(continued...)

of the Act?” Id. at 980-81 (Wright, J., concurring). He concluded that the SPA 

does indeed “suffer[] from a self-destructive internal contradiction – a sex 

psychopath as defined therein must of necessity be mentally ill – which renders it 

unenforceable.” Id. at 985.

49 Id. at 972 (majority opinion); see also Cross v. Harris, 418 F.2d 1095, 

1099 (D.C. Cir. 1969) (“Under Millard, it remains for future cases to show whether 

there are in fact any dangerous sexual recidivists who are not ‘mentally ill’ within 

the broad meaning of the [Ervin] Act.”).

50 Millard, 406 F.2d at 973.
23

“When the statute is evaluated in that light,” the court said, “constitutional issues 

of the gravest magnitude immediately appear.”51 As a substantive matter, there 

was “a serious question” whether the state ever can commit a person to a mental 

hospital against his will, “not because he is mentally ill[,] but only because his past 

conduct allegedly demonstrates his likely dangerousness” in the future.

52 And

even if this were permissible, the court had “great difficulty imagining” how it 

could be done without “the full protection” of the constitutional rights of 

defendants in criminal trials.53 

Here too, though, the Millard court refrained from deciding whether the SPA 

could pass constitutional muster. The court found it unnecessary to reach the

substantive due process issue because Mr. Millard was not a violent sexual 

offender, and the evidence showed he was unlikely to engage in any sexual 

misconduct other than exhibitionism. This allowed the court to conclude that Mr. 

Millard had met his burden of showing he was “not sufficiently likely to cause the 

 51 Id.

52 Id.

53 Id.
24

sort of harm required by the statute to justify further commitment” (and hence was 

not a sexual psychopath for that reason).

54

So the D.C. Circuit did not strike down the SPA, and its clear warning that 

the statute appeared to raise “constitutional issues of the gravest magnitude” went 

unheeded for the next fifty years – even as most of the first generation sexual 

psychopath statutes in other jurisdictions “faced widespread criticism . . . . [and] 

were either repealed or no longer used by the early 1980s.”55 But with the 

availability of the Ervin Act, the SPA, too, descended into a state of prolonged 

desuetude. It appears that the SPA rarely has been employed since Millard to 

 54 Id. at 978. 

55 Smith, supra note 32, at 627-28. In brief:

A growing number of commentators within psychiatry 

attacked the “sexual psychopath” legal classification, as 

there was no agreed-upon definition or basis to attach this 

label to any individual. Moreover, it became clear that 

many of these hospitalized men were not mentally ill and 

received little, if any, treatment in these hospitals. The 

laws were little more than extended detention on a 

preventive basis.

Id. (footnotes omitted); see also 1 Michael L. Perlin & Heather Ellis Cucolo, 

Mental Disability Law: Civil and Criminal [hereinafter, “Perlin”], § 5-2.2, p. 5-45 

n.225 (3d ed. 2018) (“Any remaining laws fell into disuse and half-way into the 

decade from 1980 to 1990, only five states . . . still applied their [sexual 

psychopath] law with any appreciable frequency.”); Lave, supra note 32, at 579-

89. 
25

commit a person against his or her will. Until now, in the past half century, this 

court has dealt with a committed “sexual psychopath” in only one published 

opinion – and that was a case in which the commitment was not involuntary at all, 

but rather was at the behest of the “patient” himself over the government’s 

objection.56

B. The Requirements of Substantive Due Process

The Supreme Court has not had occasion to consider the constitutionality of 

the District of Columbia’s SPA. But as the Court said in Addington v. Texas,

57 it 

“has repeatedly recognized that civil commitment for any purpose constitutes a 

significant deprivation of liberty that requires due process protection.”58 

Traditionally, and as a condition of substantive due process, civil commitment 

statutes throughout the United States have required a dual finding of mental illness 

and resultant dangerousness (to self or others).59 In O’Connor v. Donaldson,

60 the 

 56 Shelton, 721 A.2d at 604. The only issue presented in this appeal was 

whether Mr. Shelton was entitled to receive credit against his criminal sentence for 

the time he spent confined under the SPA. Id.

57 441 U.S. 418 (1979).

58 Id. at 425.

59 See Perlin, supra note 55, § 3-1.
26

Court held that “[a] finding of ‘mental illness’ alone cannot justify a State’s 

locking a person up against his will and keeping him indefinitely in simple 

custodial confinement. . . . [T]here is . . . no constitutional basis for confining such 

persons involuntarily if they are dangerous to no one and can live safely in 

freedom.”61 In Foucha v. Louisiana,

62 the Court confirmed that the converse is 

also true: future dangerousness by itself cannot justify the indefinite civil 

confinement in a mental institution of someone who is not, or is no longer, 

mentally ill.

63 And Addington held that the Due Process Clause requires both

 

(continued...)

60 422 U.S. 563 (1975).

61 Id. at 575. 

62 504 U.S. 71 (1992).

63 Id. at 83. Mr. Foucha was committed to a psychiatric hospital under 

Louisiana law after a criminal trial in which he was found not guilty by reason of 

insanity. Under Jones v. United States, 463 U.S. 354 (1983), it properly could be 

inferred that at the time of the verdict, Foucha was still mentally ill and dangerous 

and hence could be committed. Foucha, 504 U.S. at 76. State law barred 

Foucha’s release until he could prove he was no longer dangerous, even when he 

concededly was no longer mentally ill. Id. at 75. Despite Foucha’s continuing 

dangerousness, the Court held that Foucha could be held only “as long as he is 

both mentally ill and dangerous, but no longer,” id. at 77, and that “keeping [him] 

against his will in a mental institution [was] improper absent a determination in 

civil commitment proceedings of current mental illness and dangerousness.” Id. at 

78.
27

statutory preconditions – mental illness and dangerousness – to be proved by (at 

least) clear and convincing evidence.64 

In a later case, Kansas v. Hendricks,

65 the Supreme Court clarified that the 

Due Process Clause allows the civil commitment of persons who are not 

categorized by psychiatrists as “mentally ill” if they are found to be dangerous due 

to other seriously disabling mental abnormalities or disorders. In so holding, the 

Court adhered to the basic substantive due process principle that civil commitment 

requires proof of a serious mental impairment of some kind in addition to

dangerousness as a result thereof. The question, as the Court explained, is not the 

nomenclature used to describe the mental impairment, or the mere existence of a 

mental impairment per se, but its substantial adverse impact on the person’s ability 

to control his or her dangerous behavior. Specifically, the Court held that 

substantive due process requires proof of a mental illness, disorder, or abnormality 

“that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the person to control his behavior.”66

 64 Addington, 441 U.S. at 433. 

65 521 U.S. 346 (1997).

66 Id. at 358.
28

The statute before the Court in Hendricks was Kansas’s recently enacted 

Sexually Violent Predator Act (the “SVPA”).

67 It provided for the involuntary

civil commitment of “any person who has been convicted of or charged with a 

sexually violent offense and who suffers from a mental abnormality or personality 

disorder which makes the person likely to engage in . . . predatory acts of sexual 

violence.”68 A “mental abnormality” was statutorily defined to mean “a congenital 

or acquired condition affecting the emotional or volitional capacity which 

predisposes the person to commit sexually violent offenses in a degree constituting 

such person a menace to the health and safety of others.”69 The SVPA did not 

require a finding of a “mental illness.”70 Mr. Hendricks was involuntarily 

 67 Beginning in 1990, following the virtual demise of the old sexual 

psychopath statutes, a number of states enacted a second generation of statutes 

providing for the civil commitment of persons commonly described as “sexually 

violent predators.” See Perlin, supra note 55, §§ 5-2.2, 5-2.3. In contrast to prior 

statutes, the new statutes expressly authorized civil commitment for persons found 

to be sexually dangerous due to mental abnormalities or disorders other than 

mental illness. 

68 Kan. Stat. Ann. § 59-29a02(a) (1994) (emphasis added). This is the 

original statutory definition of the term “sexually violent predator.” The definition

later was amended; it now contains the additional requirement that the person must

have “serious difficulty in controlling such person’s dangerous behavior.” Kan. 

Stat. Ann. § 59-29a02(a) (2018). It appears that this requirement was added in 

response to Hendricks and the subsequent decision of the Supreme Court in 

Kansas v. Crane, 534 U.S. 407 (2002), which is discussed below.

69 Kan. Stat. Ann. § 59-29a02(b) (1994) (emphasis added). The statute did 

not define “personality disorder.” Unlike “mental abnormality,” “personality 

(continued...)
29

committed under the SVPA as someone whose psychiatric diagnosis of pedophilia 

qualified as a “mental abnormality.” Hendricks contended, and the Kansas 

Supreme Court had agreed, that his commitment without a finding that he suffered 

from a “mental illness” violated his right to substantive due process under the 

holdings of Foucha and Addington.

71

The Supreme Court reversed, holding that a “mental illness” finding was not 

constitutionally required because the SVPA’s “definition of ‘mental abnormality’ 

satisfies ‘substantive’ due process requirements.”72 Under its precedents, the Court 

explained, “[a] finding of dangerousness, standing alone, is ordinarily not a 

sufficient ground upon which to justify indefinite involuntary commitment”;

 

(continued...)

disorder” is a well-established term of art used in psychiatric diagnosis; it refers to

“an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from 

the expectations of the individual’s culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an 

onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or 

impairment.” DVM-IV, supra note 15, at 645.

70 According to its original preamble, the SVPA was enacted to reach an 

“extremely dangerous group of sexually violent predators . . . who do not have a 

mental disease or defect” but whose “anti-social personality features . . . render 

them likely to engage in sexually violent behavior.” Kan. Stat. Ann. § 59-29a01 

(1994). (The preamble later was amended and no longer contains this language.)

71 See In re Hendricks, 912 P.2d 129, 138 (Kan. 1996).

72 521 U.S. at 356.
30

substantive due process requires the state to “couple[] proof of dangerousness with 

the proof of some additional factor, such as a ‘mental illness’ or ‘mental 

abnormality.’”73 This coupling is necessary “to limit involuntary civil confinement 

to those who suffer from a volitional impairment rendering them dangerous beyond 

their control,”74 as opposed to “other dangerous persons who are perhaps more 

properly dealt with exclusively through criminal proceedings.”75 The SVPA 

therefore comports with substantive due process, the Court stated, because it 

“requires proof of more than a mere predisposition to violence”76; it “requires a

finding of future dangerousness . . . link[ed] . . . to the existence of a ‘mental 

abnormality’ or ‘personality disorder’ that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for 

the person to control his dangerous behavior.”77 “The precommitment requirement 

of a ‘mental abnormality’ or ‘personality disorder’ is consistent,” said the Court, 

 73 Id. at 358. 

74 Id.

75 Id. at 360; see also id. at 362 (explaining that the focus on the existence 

of a disabling mental abnormality or disorder is the basic reason SVPA 

proceedings are not criminal in nature). 

76 Id. at 357.

77 Id. at 358. The Court also held that Hendricks’s diagnosis of pedophilia, 

“a condition the psychiatric profession itself classifies as a serious mental disorder, 

. . . . plainly suffices for due process purposes.” Id. at 360.
31

“with the requirements of . . . other [civil commitment] statutes that we have 

upheld in that it narrows the class of persons eligible for confinement to those who 

are unable to control their dangerousness.”78

The Court reiterated this constitutional requirement of a mental abnormality 

or disorder to narrow the class of dangerous persons who are civilly committable 

when it was called upon in Kansas v. Crane79 to clarify whether due process 

requires a state to prove that a dangerous individual is “completely unable to 

control his behavior.”80 While the Court rejected such an “absolutist approach” as 

“unworkable,”81 it re-emphasized that, to satisfy the requirements of substantive 

due process:

[t]here must be proof of serious difficulty in controlling 

behavior. And this, when viewed in light of such 

features of the case as the nature of the psychiatric 

diagnosis, and the severity of the mental abnormality 

 78 Id. at 358.

79 534 U.S. 407 (2002).

80 Id. at 411 (emphasis in original).

81 Id. “Moreover,” the Court said, “most severely ill people – even those 

commonly termed ‘psychopaths’ – retain some ability to control their behavior,” 

and “[i]nsistence upon absolute lack of control would risk barring the civil 

commitment of highly dangerous persons suffering severe mental abnormalities.” 

Id. at 412.
32

itself, must be sufficient to distinguish the dangerous 

sexual offender whose serious mental illness, 

abnormality, or disorder subjects him to civil 

commitment from the dangerous but typical recidivist 

convicted in an ordinary criminal case.[82]

This distinction must be maintained, the Court said, “lest ‘civil commitment’ 

become a ‘mechanism for retribution or general deterrence – functions properly 

those of criminal law, not civil commitment.”83

Thus, while a history of recidivism may demonstrate a person’s

dangerousness, Hendricks and Crane make clear that the history of recidivism is 

not sufficient to justify civil commitment. Proof of an impairment that causes a

serious lack of self-control is also required. A history of recidivism, alone, does 

not furnish that proof; indeed, in ordinary criminal cases we normally think of 

recidivism as implying greater blameworthiness, not less. A serious innate 

inability to control behavior must be shown by identifying the source of that 

impairment in what Crane called “such features of the case as the nature of the 

psychiatric diagnosis, and the severity of the mental abnormality itself.”84 The 

 82 Id. at 413. 

83 Id. at 412 (quoting Hendricks, 521 U.S. at 372-73 (Kennedy, J., 

concurring)).

84 Id.
33

constitutionality of civil commitment rests on a factual premise: that, in some 

cases, serious mental abnormalities may render people practically unable to refrain 

from dangerous sexual (or other) behavior even under the deterrent threat of 

criminal punishment. The “psychiatric diagnosis” may not be sufficient by itself to 

establish the necessary impairment.

85 But there must be proof of a “serious mental 

illness, abnormality, or disorder” of some sort for a court to find the degree of 

incapacitation required to justify civil commitment based on predictions of future 

dangerousness.

In sum, to comport with the requirements of substantive due process as 

enunciated by the Supreme Court, a civil commitment statute must require the 

court to find that the prospective committee is afflicted with a mental illness, 

mental abnormality, or mental disorder that makes it seriously difficult for the 

person to control (i.e., refrain from) his or her dangerous behavior. 

 85 See DSM-IV, supra note 15, at xxxiii (“In determining whether an 

individual meets a specified legal standard (e.g., for competence, criminal 

responsibility, or disability), additional information is usually required beyond that 

contained in the DSM-IV diagnosis. . . . [T]he fact that an individual’s 

presentation meets the criteria for a DSM-IV diagnosis does not carry any 

necessary implication regarding the individual’s degree of control over the 

behaviors that may be associated with the disorder. Even when diminished control 

over one’s behavior is a feature of the disorder, having the diagnosis in itself does 

not demonstrate that a particular individual is (or was) unable to control his or her 

behavior at a particular time.”).
34

C. The Facial Unconstitutionality of the SPA

The SPA authorizes indefinite civil commitment to a mental institution 

without requiring the court to find in any case that the “patient” suffers from any 

mental disease, disorder, or abnormality that makes it seriously difficult to control 

his or her dangerous behavior. The SPA therefore contravenes the requirements of 

substantive due process enunciated by the Supreme Court and is unconstitutional 

on its face. Paradoxically, moreover, the D.C. Circuit’s “saving” construction of 

the SPA in Millard serves only to make the statute’s violation of due process all 

the more egregious. That is so because anyone suffering from a volitionally 

disabling mental condition severe enough to satisfy due process would almost 

certainly be “insane” under Millard’s expansive definition of that term, and hence

would be ineligible for civil commitment under the statute. In other words, under

Millard, the SPA not only authorizes unconstitutional commitments; perversely, it 

authorizes only unconstitutional commitments.

86 That said, however, it must be 

recognized that Millard did not create the basic due process problem with the SPA, 

and overruling Millard would not solve that problem. Regardless of how broadly 

 86 If any mental condition could be serious enough to render a person 

substantially unable to control his or her dangerous sexual behavior, yet would not 

be serious enough to render the person legally “insane” under Millard, no party to 

this appeal has identified it. 
35

or narrowly the statutory exclusion of “insane” patients may be defined, the SPA 

offends due process on its face because it authorizes indefinite civil commitment to 

a mental hospital without requiring proof that the patient is afflicted with any

mental illness, disorder, or abnormality.

The government argues that the SPA is “consistent” with the requirements of 

Hendricks and Crane because it requires a finding – “lack of power to control his 

or her sexual impulses”87 – that itself constitutes a mental abnormality. We 

disagree. The SPA is not consistent with Hendricks and Crane because those cases 

require the lack-of-control determination to be grounded in a specific finding of a 

mental disease, disorder, or abnormality. The SPA fails to require such grounding. 

It expressly provides that the requisite lack of control is to be found, not from the 

prospective committee’s mental condition, but from his or her “course of repeated 

misconduct in sexual matters.”88 The SPA thus does precisely what substantive 

due process forbids – it treats recidivism as establishing lack of control (and, per 

the government, the constitutionally necessary mental impairment too) instead of 

 87 D.C. Code § 22-3803(1).

88 Id.
36

demanding inquiry into whether the recidivism was due to lack of control

(attributable to an identified mental impairment).

This critique of the SPA’s constitutional deficiency is borne out by the trial 

court’s findings in this case. Adhering to the terms of the statute, the court did not 

make a finding, required by Hendricks and Crane, as to whether Mr. Tilley

suffered from a mental illness, disorder, or abnormality that seriously impaired his 

ability to control his sexually dangerous behavior. The court based its finding that 

Mr. Tilley could not “control his deviant sexual impulses” solely on his “repeated 

sexual misconduct” and “prior sexual abuse,” without linking that behavior or Mr. 

Tilley’s future dangerousness to any debilitating mental condition. In other words, 

the court did not make the findings necessary to distinguish Mr. Tilley from the 

“dangerous but typical recidivist convicted in an ordinary criminal case.”89 The 

court did not consider whether it could make the necessary findings on the record 

before it because the SPA did not require them. Mr. Tilley’s civil commitment as a 

“sexual psychopath” therefore cannot stand.

 89 Crane, 534 U.S. at 413.
37

We thus conclude that the SPA “contain[s] a constitutional infirmity that 

invalidates the statute in its entirety” – it “fails to require the government to prove 

everything the Constitution requires it to prove for [civil commitment] to be 

imposed.”90 Moreover, as a court, we cannot undertake to rewrite the SPA in order 

to save it; that task would not be as simple as merely severing an unconstitutional 

provision and leaving the rest of the statute as it is.

91 “We cannot ignore the text 

and purpose of a statute in order to save it.”92 Saving the SPA would require

changing it drastically by making difficult policy choices regarding such matters as 

what kinds of mental disorder and types of impairment must be found to justify 

civil commitment; how to square those choices with the “not insane” exclusion; 

and what evidence would be sufficient or necessary to establish those 

preconditions to commitment.

93 Any such effort would be complicated by the fact 

that requiring a finding of serious mental disorder would re-raise the equal 

 90 Conley v. United States, 79 A.3d 270, 277 (D.C. 2013) (internal quotation 

marks and footnotes omitted).

91 Id. at 280-81; see also D.C. Code § 45-201(a) (2012 Repl.).

92 Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 787 (2008).

93 The blatant facial unconstitutionality of the SPA has spared us from 

having to address these quite problematic and controversial issues. A vast 

literature exploring the issues in depth awaits anyone who is inclined to try to 

resolve them.
38

protection issues that the court in Millard sought to avoid by construing the SPA as 

inapplicable to the mentally ill. Furthermore, given the existence of the Ervin Act 

and the Citizens with Intellectual Disabilities Act, and the rarity with which the 

SPA has been employed in the past fifty years, there are serious questions as to 

whether there is a need for a rewritten SPA and how it would coexist with those 

other laws.

94 For all these reasons, undertaking to save the SPA is not this court’s 

prerogative; “we ‘do not sit as [a] council of revision, empowered to rewrite 

legislation in accord with [our] own conceptions of prudent public policy.’”95 That

job is for the legislature. 

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we hold that the SPA is unconstitutional on its 

face and inapplicable to Mr. Tilley or anyone else. We reverse the judgment of the 

 94 It appears that a majority of the states do not have civil commitment

statutes specifically targeting sex offenders. See Smith, supra note 32, at 621 

(stating that as of 2015, approximately twenty states have enacted Sexually Violent 

Predator laws). 

95 Riggs Nat’l Bank v. District of Columbia, 581 A.2d 1229, 1247 (D.C. 

1990) (quoting United States v. Rutherford, 442 U.S. 544, 555 (1979)). 
39

Superior Court, vacate Mr. Tilley’s commitment, and remand for any further 

proceedings consistent with our decision that may be required in his case.

So ordered.

THOMPSON, Associate Judge, dissenting: Appellant Tilley challenges the 

order of the Superior Court that civilly committed him pursuant to the Sexual 

Psychopath Act, D.C. Code § 22-3803 et seq. (2012 Repl.) (the “SPA”). The 

opinion for the court resolves his challenges by striking down the SPA, having 

concluded that it is unconstitutional on its face. I respectfully dissent. I would 

have the court adhere instead to the “cardinal principle that a court should first 

ascertain whether a construction of a statute is fairly possible that will avoid the 

question of its constitutionality even [if] serious doubt exists as to the statute’s 

validity.”1

 Given the SPA’s legislative history, I believe such a construction is 

“fairly possible.”2

 Specifically, this is a case in which “the legislative design and 

 1

 District of Columbia v. Walters, 319 A.2d 332, 336 (1974).

2

 Id.
40

the limits of the judicial function . . . permit us to read the critical missing elements 

into the statute[.]”3

 

Under the SPA, “[i]f [a] patient is determined to be a sexual psychopath, the 

court shall commit him or her to an institution to be confined there until released in 

accordance with § 22-3809” (which authorizes release from confinement in an 

institution “when an appropriate supervisory official finds that [the committed 

person] has sufficiently recovered so as to not be dangerous to other persons”). 

D.C. Code §§ 22-3808 and 22-3809. D.C. Code § 22-3803(1) defines a “sexual 

psychopath” as “a person, not insane, who by a course of repeated misconduct in 

sexual matters has evidenced such lack of power to control his or her sexual 

impulses as to be dangerous to other persons because he or she is likely to attack or 

otherwise inflict injury, loss, pain, or other evil on the objects of his or her desire.” 

D.C. Code § 22-3803(1).

The opinion for the court concludes that, taken together, these provisions of 

the SPA authorize the confinement of persons deemed “sexual psychopaths” 

without proof that they have any mental disorder or abnormality that causes serious 

 3

 Conley v. United States, 79 A.3d 270, 277 (D.C. 2013).
41

impairment of their ability to control their sexual behavior. In other words, the 

court holds, by its terms the SPA purports to authorize the civil commitment of 

persons whose “lack of control” is proven solely on the basis of a “course of 

repeated misconduct in sexual matters” and not on their having a disabling mental 

condition. For that reason, the opinion for the court concludes, the SPA is facially 

unconstitutional, because under Supreme Court jurisprudence, “some additional 

factor, such as a ‘mental illness’ or ‘mental abnormality’” must be present in order 

for indefinite involuntary civil commitment to satisfy the requirements of 

substantive due process.4

By its terms, the SPA applies only to individuals who are “not insane” (i.e., 

not mentally ill5

), and its statutory language does not explicitly require that the 

person committed have some other mental abnormality. But the legislative history 

of the SPA leaves little room for doubt that when Congress enacted the SPA in 

 4 Hendricks, 521 U.S. at 358. The Supreme Court “has repeatedly 

recognized that civil commitment for any purpose constitutes a significant 

deprivation of liberty that requires due process protection.” Addington, 441 U.S. at 

425 (collecting cases). 

5

 See Millard, 406 F.2d at 973, 968–69. Further, the term “mental illness” 

is to be accorded “a liberal construction” coextensive with the scope of that term in 

the Ervin Act. Id.; see also D.C. Code § 21-541 et seq. (2012 Repl.); Cross, 418 

F.2d at 1097, 1104.
42

1948, it meant for it to authorize civil commitment of persons whose uncontrolled 

sexual urges were the product of conditions that needed to be cured or treated —

i.e., of abnormal mental conditions. See 94 Cong. Rec. 4886, 4887 (1948) 

(explanation by Rep. MacKinnon that the SPA “provides that sexual psychopaths 

shall be considered as sick persons”); H. Rept. No. 1787, for H.R. 6071, April 22, 

1948 at 5 (“[T]he title essentially provides treatment [of patients] rather than 

punishment.”); H. Subcommittee on the Judiciary of the Committee on the District 

of Columbia, 80th Cong., 2d Session, Hearing on H.R. 6071 (May 14, 1948) at 43 

(referring to commitment under the SPA until the individual is “sufficiently 

recovered” so as not to be dangerous to other persons); S. Rep. No. 1377, 80th 

Cong., 2d Session (May 21, 1948) at 5 (same); H. Subcommittee on the Judiciary 

of the Committee on the District of Columbia, 80th Cong., 2d Session, Hearing on 

H.R. 6071 (May 14, 1948) at 12 (statement of Rep. Arthur Miller) (referring to 

sexual psychopaths as “sick people” who “need psychiatric treatment” because 

they “have something grooved in their brain, or a cell has gone haywire”); id., at 9 

(statement of United States Attorney George Morris Fay) (referring to the SPA’s 

purpose of committing sexual psychopaths to St. Elizabeths “where they will try to 

treat [them] and cure [them]”); id., at 16 (statement of Winfred Overholser, 
43

Superintendent of St. Elizabeths) (referring to sexual psychopaths as “definitely 

abnormal”).6

 

In Hendricks, the Supreme Court clarified that the Due Process Clause 

allows the civil commitment of persons who are not categorized by psychiatrists as 

“mentally ill” if they are found to be dangerous due to other seriously disabling 

mental abnormalities or disorders.7

 In light of the legislative history cited in the 

paragraph above, I believe the SPA cannot properly be read to authorize civil 

commitment of an individual who is afflicted with no mental abnormality that 

seriously impairs ability to control sexual behavior. Read in the manner I believe 

is correct — i.e., that the SPA authorizes civil commitment of persons whose 

uncontrolled sexual urges are the product of abnormal mental conditions — the 

SPA passes substantive-due-process muster.8

 6

 See also Miller v. Overholser, 206 F.2d 415, 418–19 (D.C. Cir. 1953)

(“[T]he intent and the terms of [the SPA] are for the commitment of [patients not 

confined for violation of law] to a hospital for remedial [and therapeutic] 

treatment.”).

7

 See 521 U.S. at 358–60; see also id. at 360 (“Hendricks’ diagnosis as a 

pedophile, which qualifies as a ‘mental abnormality’ under the [Kansas statute], 

thus plainly suffices for due process purposes.”).

8

 I acknowledge Judge Glickman’s observation that “anyone suffering from 

a volitionally disabling mental condition severe enough to satisfy due process 

would almost certainly be ‘insane’ under Millard’s expansive definition of that 

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44

In my view, the problem we confront in resolving this matter is that the trial 

court did not make the finding that Hendricks mandates as a condition of civil 

commitment under the SPA: a finding regarding whether Mr. Tilley suffers from 

pedophilia or some other mental abnormality (that does not qualify as a mental 

illness) that seriously impairs his ability to control his sexually dangerous 

behavior.9

 I would remand this matter to the trial court for it to resolve that factual 

issue. On remand, I would leave it to the trial court’s discretion, informed by that 

 

(continued...)

term, and hence would be ineligible for civil commitment under the [SPA].” Ante, 

at 34. The Millard court made a similar observation, asking whether the SPA’s 

language is not “so meaningless or selfcontradictory as to be constitutionally 

infirm.” 406 F.2d at 972. I do not have broad enough knowledge about the 

universe of mental disorders to know whether these observations are correct, but I 

share the Millard court’s reluctance to declare the SPA invalid given what that

court found to be the lack of “evidence of a legislative intent to supersede the 

[SPA].” Id. at 969.

9

 As the opinion for the court notes, Dr. Patterson opined that Mr. Tilley 

meets the diagnostic criteria for pedophilia, but did not testify that pedophiles lack 

the power to control their sexual impulses (explaining that if the contrary were 

true, “then any time . . . they see a child they’d run over and grab the child,” but 

“[t]hat’s not what happens.”). His point seemed to be that pedophiles, who 

typically plan and scheme, do not totally lack power to control their sexual 

impulses. His testimony seemed to leave the door open for a finding that Mr. 

Tilley’s has a mental abnormality that makes it difficult for him to control his 

dangerous sexual behavior, which could be the basis for civil commitment that is 

consistent with substantive due process. Cf. Crane, 534 U.S. at 411–12 (agreeing 

that Hendricks set forth no requirement of total or complete lack of control; it is 

enough if the commitment statute requires a “‘mental abnormality’ or ‘personality 

disorder’ that makes it ‘difficult, if not impossible, for the dangerous person to 

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45

finding and the parties’ advocacy, to determine whether the court should proceed 

to the long-delayed Jackson hearing. I note that Drs. Phillips and Patterson 

suggested that Mr. Tilley may have the capacity to work with counsel and a better 

understanding of the charges against him than previous opinions have suggested, 

so a hearing does not seem futile.

 

(continued...)

control his dangerous behavior’”) (quoting Hendricks, 521 U.S. at 358) (brackets 

and emphasis omitted).