Opinion ID: 2499668
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Facial challenge to the 2005 amendments

Text: ¶ 26 Mr. McCuistion also presents a facial challenge to the 2005 amendments to RCW 71.09.090, which allow for an evidentiary hearing only upon a showing that the individual has undergone a physiological change or a change in mental condition due to treatment. He claims the amendments violate substantive due process by divorcing the ability to gain a new trial from [sic] question of the person's current mental state and dangerousness. Pet'r's Suppl. Br. at 3; see RCW 71.09.090(4). In particular, Mr. McCuistion argues: Using success in treatment as the only viable avenue for winning a full re-commitment trial is fraught with scientific uncertainty and unmoored from the necessary requirement that commitment may not continue when a person is not currently likely to commit sexually violent offenses due to a mental disorder. Pet'r's Suppl. Br. at 14. ¶ 27 Constitutional questions are questions of law and, accordingly, are subject to de novo review. Amunrud v. Bd. of Appeals, 158 Wash.2d 208, 215, 143 P.3d 571 (2006). Statutes are presumed constitutional, and the burden is on the challenger to prove otherwise. Id. ¶ 28 Because civil commitment involves a massive deprivation of liberty, it must meet the demands of substantive due process. Foucha, 504 U.S. at 80, 112 S.Ct. 1780. Liberty is a fundamental right. Id.; Young I, 122 Wash.2d at 26, 857 P.2d 989 (citing United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 750, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987)). Accordingly, a civil commitment scheme like this one is constitutional only if it is narrowly drawn to serve compelling state interests. Young I, 122 Wash.2d at 26, 857 P.2d 989. As noted, civil commitment statutes are constitutional only when both initial and continued confinement are predicated on the individual's mental abnormality and dangerousness. Foucha, 504 U.S. at 77-78, 112 S.Ct. 1780; O'Connor, 422 U.S. at 575, 95 S.Ct. 2486; Jones, 463 U.S. at 368, 103 S.Ct. 3043; Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715, 738, 92 S.Ct. 1845, 32 L.Ed.2d 435 (1972) (At the least, due process requires that the nature and duration of commitment bear a reasonable relation to the purpose of the commitment.); Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 358, 117 S.Ct. 2072, 138 L.Ed.2d 501 (1997) (civil commitment in sexually violent predator context requires mental abnormality rendering the individual dangerous). ¶ 29 Essentially, McCuistion argues that the 2005 amendments violate substantive due process because they prohibit a court from ordering a new trial even when the SVP does not meet the criteria for continued confinement. This is not the case. ¶ 30 In Young I this court held that the SVP commitment scheme satisfies substantive due process because it requires the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the SVP is mentally ill and dangerous at the initial commitment hearing and that the State justify continued incarceration through an annual review. 122 Wash.2d at 26, 39, 857 P.2d 989; see also RCW 71.09.070 (requiring annual mental examination to determine whether the committed person currently meets the definition of an SVP with a report of the findings sent to the committing court). If the individual no longer meets the definition of a SVP, then the secretary shall authorize the person to petition the court for conditional release or unconditional discharge and the court shall within forty-five days order a hearing. RCW 71.09.090(1). This statutory scheme comports with substantive due process because it does not permit continued involuntary commitment of a person who is no longer mentally ill and dangerous. ¶ 31 The 2005 amendments do not alter the constitutionally critical annual review scheme. Instead, the amendments only change the requirements necessary to gain a full evidentiary hearing through the statutory protections created by the show cause process. The legislature had every right to alter a scheme that provides protections beyond what is required by substantive due process to ensure committed persons do not abuse the system to receive full annual evidentiary hearings every year based solely upon a change to a single demographic factor. ¶ 32 McCuistion speculates that a person who has not participated in treatment or who has a single demographic change, such as age, may nevertheless no longer be mentally ill and dangerous but remain committed; however, this argument assumes that the annual review process fails to properly identify those who are no longer mentally ill and dangerous. ¶ 33 `[A] facial challenge must be rejected unless there exists no set of circumstances in which the statute can constitutionally be applied.' In re Det. of Turay, 139 Wash.2d 379, 417 n. 27, 986 P.2d 790 (1999) (quoting with approval Ada v. Guam Soc'y of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, 506 U.S. 1011, 1012, 113 S.Ct. 633, 121 L.Ed.2d 564 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting)). As the State aptly recognizes, facial challenges are generally disfavored. Facial challenges are disfavored for several reasons. Claims of facial invalidity often rest on speculation. As a consequence, they raise the risk of premature interpretation of statutes on the basis of factually barebones records. Facial challenges also run contrary to the fundamental principle of judicial restraint that courts should neither anticipate a question of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it nor formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied. Resp't's Resp. to Br. of Amicus Curiae at 1-2 (quoting Wash. State Grange v. Wash. State Republican Party, 552 U.S. 442, 449-51, 128 S.Ct. 1184, 170 L.Ed.2d 151 (2008) (internal citations and quotations omitted)). ¶ 34 The legislature enacted the 2005 amendments to address the `very long-term' needs of the sexually violent predator population for treatment and the equally long-term needs of the community for protection from these offenders. Laws of 2005, ch. 344, § 1. The legislature specifically found that the mental abnormalities and personality disorders that make a person subject to commitment under chapter 71.09 RCW are severe and chronic and do not remit due solely to advancing age or changes in other demographic factors. Id. The legislature wanted to ensure that the statutory focus remains on treatment and did not want to remove the incentive for successful treatment participation. Id. The legislature also stated that persons committed as SVPs generally require prolonged treatment in a secure facility followed by intensive community supervision in the cases where positive treatment gains are sufficient for community safety. Id. ¶ 35 Mr. McCuistion contends that the legislature's findings are unworthy of deference because they rested on testimony from interested parties (including the attorney representing the State in this matter and two attorneys who filed amicus briefs) rather than detailed research. Pet'r's Answer to Amicus Filed by Wash. Ass'n of Prosecuting Attorneys at 4-6. However, also testifying in support of the 2005 amendments was Henry Richards, superintendent of the SCC and a psychologist and researcher by training. Mr. Richards provided empirical evidence in support of this legislative finding by testifying that the proposed bill [p]revents a misapplication of relatively weak and sometimes not carefully thought through scientific evidence that really isn't scientific and it's not generally accepted and hasn't really been empirically validated, certainly on our population. Hr'g on S.B. 5582 Before H. Criminal Justice & Corrections Comm., 59th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Wash. Mar. 25, 2005). He further testified that most of what we know about the science says that any estimates tend to push their severity toward the extreme, toward the more severe, not some sort of simple algorithm where we would reduce their risk by the mere passage of time. Id. We have no basis to discredit the legislature's empirical findings on this matter. ¶ 36 Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 117 S.Ct. 2072, is instructive. In upholding Kansas' sexually violent predator act, the United States Supreme Court rejected the detainee's argument that the statutory term mental abnormality, a term developed by the state legislature and not the psychiatric community, conflicted with the Court's long standing requirement that an individual subject to civil commitment suffer from a mental illness. Id. at 358-59, 117 S.Ct. 2072. Citing the terms insanity and competency, the Court explained that it had traditionally left to legislators the task of defining terms of a medical nature that have legal significance. Id. at 359, 117 S.Ct. 2072. Referencing the widespread disagreement among psychiatric professionals concerning pedophilias and paraphilias, it further noted that when a legislature `undertakes to act in areas fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties, legislative options must be especially broad and courts should be cautious not to rewrite legislation.' Id. at 360 n. 3, 117 S.Ct. 2072 (quoting Jones, 463 U.S. at 370, 103 S.Ct. 3043). ¶ 37 By the same token, because predicting recidivism among SVPs is fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties, we owe substantial deference to the legislature's finding that the mental abnormalities and personality disorders that make a person subject to commitment under chapter 71.09 RCW are severe and chronic and do not remit due solely to advancing age or changes in other demographic factors. Id.; Laws of 2005, ch. 344, § 1; see Wash. State Legislature v. Lowry, 131 Wash.2d 309, 320, 931 P.2d 885 (1997) (court defers to legislative findings of fact). ¶ 38 The deference we owe generally to the factual findings of the legislature also supports our conclusion that a judicial inquiry into the degree of scientific rigor underlying the findings at issue is not required. See, e.g., City of Tacoma v. O'Brien, 85 Wash.2d 266, 270-71, 534 P.2d 114 (1975) (Legislatures must necessarily make inquiries and factual determinations as an incident to the process of making law, and courts ordinarily will not controvert or even question legislative findings of facts.); Hoppe v. State, 78 Wash.2d 164, 169, 469 P.2d 909 (1970) (where a legislative declaration of the basis and necessity for an enactment does appear in the enactment that declaration is to be deemed conclusive as to the circumstances asserted and must be given effect unless, aided only by facts of which a court can take judicial notice, it can be said that the legislative declaration on its face is obviously false); Lenci v. City of Seattle, 63 Wash.2d 664, 668, 388 P.2d 926 (1964) (And, if a state of facts justifying the ordinance can reasonably be conceived to exist, such facts must be presumed to exist and the ordinance passed in conformity therewith. These rules are more than mere rules of judicial convenience. They mark the line of demarcation between legislative and judicial functions. (citation omitted)). ¶ 39 Mr. McCuistion fails to establish that individuals may cease to be mentally ill or dangerous without treatment or physiological change or that the 2005 amendments to chapter 71.09 RCW violate substantive due process by requiring positive change through treatment or physiological change. This is so because the statutory basis for continued commitment remains the same after the 2005 amendments: mental abnormality and dangerousness, which the State must reevaluate annually.