Court Opinion

ID: 9622310
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:15:21.954657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:52.106953
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J.
I concur in the majority opinion, whose reasoning with respect to the relevant federal constitutional issues seems virtually compelled by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Kansas v. Hendricks (1997) 521 U.S. 346 [117 S.Ct. 2072, 138 L.Ed.2d 501] (Hendricks). In this facial challenge to the Sexually Violent Predators Act (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6600 et seq.) (the Act), petitioner fails to carry his burden of establishing that the Act’s procedures are inconsistent with the constitutional guarantees on which he bases his claims. (See Tobe v. City of Santa Ana (1995) 9 Cal.4th 1069, 1084 [40 Cal.Rptr.2d 402, 892 P.2d 1145].) And the record in this case, detailing the history of petitioner’s criminal sexual behavior and related diagnoses, appears to support the Act’s application to him.
Despite its availability in the present situation, however, the Act must not be stretched beyond its constitutional limits. As Justice Kennedy wrote in his concurring opinion in Hendricks, supra, 521 U.S. at page 373 [117 S.Ct. at page 2087], “[I]f . . . civil confinement were to become a mechanism for retribution or general deterrence, or if it were shown that mental abnormality is too imprecise a category to offer a solid basis for concluding that civil detention is justified, our precedents would not suffice to validate it.” One way in which a “diagnosed mental disorder” (to employ the Act’s terminology, see Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6600, subd. (a)) may come to be recognized as “too imprecise a category” is if such diagnoses cease to distinguish meaningfully between, on the one hand, offenders whose violent predatory conduct stems in some way from an abnormality of thought, perception or affect and, on the other hand, all remaining offenders, who by virtue of their *1180deviant conduct may properly be described as abnormal but whose abnormality only traces, in circular fashion, back to their conduct. It was to this danger the high court alluded in Foucha v. Louisiana (1992) 504 U.S. 71, 82-83 [112 S.Ct. 1780, 1786-1787, 118 L.Ed.2d 437], cautioning: “It was emphasized in [United States v.] Salerno [(1987) 481 U.S. 739 [107 S.Ct. 2095, 95 L.Ed.2d 697]] that the [pretrial] detention we found constitutionally permissible was strictly limited in duration. [Citations.] Here, in contrast, the State asserts that because Foucha once committed a criminal act and now has an antisocial personality that sometimes leads to aggressive conduct, a disorder for which there is no effective treatment, he may be held indefinitely. This rationale would permit the State to hold indefinitely any other insanity acquittee not mentally ill who could be shown to have a personality disorder that may lead to criminal conduct. The same would be true of any convicted criminal, even though he has completed his prison term. It would also be only a step away from substituting confinements for dangerousness for our present system which, with only narrow exceptions and aside from permissible confinements for mental illness, incarcerates only those who are proved beyond reasonable doubt to have violated a criminal law.”
The diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder (the incidence of which has been estimated to be as high as 70 to 80 percent among incarcerated prisoners; see Janus, The Uses of Social Science and Medicine in Sex Offender Commitment (1997) 23 New Eng. J. on Grim. & Civ. Confinement 347, 368) is founded on behavioral criteria, including a history of criminality.1 The Act acknowledges that conviction of one or more sexually violent offenses *1181constitutes evidence that may support a court’s or jury’s determination that the individual falls within the provisions of the Act. (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6600, subd. (a).) Such convictions do not, standing alone, bring an individual within its terms; the Act requires that jurors be admonished they may not find a person to be a sexually violent predator based on prior offenses absent “a currently diagnosed mental disorder that makes the person a danger to the health and safety of others in that it is likely that he or she will engage in sexually violent criminal behavior.” (Ibid.) If, however, such a diagnosis is based largely on the person’s prior offenses, it may add little to the reliability of the finding. To the extent the diagnosis simply places a psychiatric label on a particular character structure or a generalized propensity to do ill, Fouchal s warnings assume more immediate constitutional significance.
The concrete facts of some future proceeding may force this or another court to confront the potential constitutional limits of the Act. I am satisfied this case does not present such an occasion.
Kennard, J., concurred.

 The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. 1994) (DSM-IV), pages 649-650, defines antisocial personality disorder as involving “a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following: HQ (1) failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest HQ (2) deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure HQ (3) impulsivity or failure to plan ahead HQ (4) irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults HQ (5) recHess disregard for safety of self or others HQ (6) consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations HQ (7) lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.” In addition, the individual must be at least 18 years old, with evidence of Conduct Disorder before age 15, and his or her antisocial behavior does not occur exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or a manic episode.
The general diagnostic criteria for a personality disorder are as follows: “A. An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture. This pattern is manifested in two (or more) of the following areas: HQ (1) cognition (i.e., ways of perceiving and interpreting self, other people, and events) HQ (2) affectivity (i.e., the range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional response) HQ (3) interpersonal functioning HQ (4) impulse control HQ B. The enduring pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations. HQ C. The enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other *1181important areas of functioning. HQ D. The pattern is stable and of long duration and its onset can be traced back at least to adolescence or early adulthood, [f] E. The enduring pattern is not better accounted for as a manifestation or consequence of another mental disorder. [^Q F. The enduring pattern is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., head trauma).” (DSM-IV, supra, at p. 633.)