Court Opinion

ID: 9454261
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:41:02.410057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:02.525985
License: Public Domain

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I concur in the result in this case, and in Chief Judge Bazelon’s opinion as far as it goes. However, I think his opinion does not go far enough, and accordingly I set forth my own views.
In 1948 Congress enacted the Sexual Psychopath Act1 under which in 1962 Maurice Millard was committed. The key definitional section of that statute defines a sexual psychopath as
*979“a person, not insane, who by a course of repeated misconduct in sexual matters has evidenced such lack of power to control his sexual impulses as to be dangerous to other persons because he is likely to attack or otherwise inflict injury, loss, pain, or other evil on the objects of his desire.” 22 D.C. Code § 3503(1). (Emphasis supplied.)
The 20 years that have passed since this statute was enacted have seen dramatic changes in the state of psychiatry and the related law. It is incumbent upon us to construe this statute in light of these changes.2
When the statute is so construed, I find the following: (1) The term “not insane” in the statute means “not mentally ill,” and “mentally ill” is to be taken in the broad legal sense defined by this court in McDonald v. United States, 114 U.S.App.D.C. 120, 312 F.2d 847 (1962) (en banc) (per curiam). (2) The lack of power to control sexual impulses described in the statute means something more than mere strong sexual propensities; it refers to persons who evidence “an utter lack of power to control their sex impulses and * * * are likely to * * * inflict injury * * * on the objects of their uncontrolled and uncontrollable desire.”3 And (3) in light of recent psychiatric opinion, it appears that a “sex psychopath” lacking the impulse control described in the statute must come within the legal definition of mental illness.
Therefore, since the statute limits its application to persons not mentally ill, it cannot apply to Millard or to any other sex psychopath described therein. Thus the medical and legal developments over the last 20 years have rendered the Sexual Psychopath Act self-contradictory and meaningless.
I
When the Sexual Psychopath Act was enacted in 1948 there was a fairly clear separation between the terms “insane” and “mentally ill.” The criterion for commitment under the general civil commitment statute at that time was that a person be insane.4 And, of course, insanity was also the ground for relieving a person of criminal responsibility. Insane persons were taken to be a narrower group than the general class of people who were mentally ill. Thus in 1953 this court, in Miller v. Overholser, 92 U.S.App.D.C. 110, 115, 206 F.2d 415, 419 (1953) , referred to the “treatment of the mentally ill who are not insane,” holding that they were committable under the Sexual Psychopath Act.
By 1964 major changes had taken place, blurring the difference between mental illness and insanity. The criterion for commitment under the new civil commitment act5 became mental illness. This followed the development in the criminal law, as seen in Durham v. United States, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 228, 214 F.2d 862 (1954) , and McDonald v. United States, supra, which made mental illness the test for relieving a person of criminal responsibility. The result of these developments is, as the Government conceded at oral argument,6 to require that the Sexual Psychopath Act be construed to apply to *980those not mentally ill, rather than those “not insane.”
Mental illness is defined in the 1964 civil commitment act as “a psychosis or other disease which substantially impairs the mental health of a person.” 21 D.C. Code § 501 (1967). Mental disease (or defect) is the criterion established in Durham for relieving criminal responsibility. In McDonald we gave a legal definition for mental disease or defect:
“mental disease or defect includes any abnormal condition of the mind which substantially affects mental or emotional processes and substantially impairs behavioral controls. * * * ” 114 U.S.App.D.C. at 124, 312 F.2d at 851.
This broad legal definition was applied to the term mental illness for commitment under the 1964 act in In re Alexander, 125 U.S.App.D.C. 352, 354-355, 372 F.2d 925, 927-928 (1967).7
II
The District of Columbia Sexual Psychopath Act was passed to conform to the Supreme Court’s construction of Minnesota’s sex psychopath law. In Minnesota ex rel. Pearson v. Probate Court of Ramsey County, 309 U.S. 270, 60 S.Ct. 523, 84 L.Ed. 744 (1940), the Minnesota act had been attacked on constitutional grounds as vague and uncertain. In rejecting this claim, the Supreme Court approved the construction of the act given by the Minnesota courts:
“* * * [T]he act is intended to include those persons who, by an 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. It would not be reasonable to apply the provisions of the statute to every person guilty of sexual misconduct nor even to persons having strong sexual propensities. * * * ” 309 U.S. at 273, 60 S.Ct. at 525. (Emphasis added.)
As shown by the Senate Committee Report,8 the District of Columbia Act’s definition was intended to mean the same as the court construction of the act in Pearson. Any doubt on this score 9 was settled as long ago as 1953, when we said:
“ * * * The draftsman of our local act wrote into it not the terms of the Minnesota statute but the interpretation of it which the Supreme Court approved.” Miller v. Overholser, supra, 92 U.S.App.D.C. at 113, 206 F.2d at 417. (Footnote omitted.)
The District of Columbia Sexual Psychopath Act, therefore, applies to persons who have evidenced a repeated pattern of utterly “uncontrolled and uncontrollable” sexual impulses driving them to harm others. The question then presented is: considering the present state of medical learning and legal definition of mental illness, is the sex psychopath described in the District of Columbia statute mentally ill as a matter of law *981and therefore outside the coverage of the Act?
Ill
In the area of determining whether a person is mentally ill for the purpose of relieving him of criminal responsibility, this court has always given great deference to the jury. This is a recognition that the area of criminal responsibility is, to a great degree, a reflection of community values, held in light of medical and other knowledge and exposure to particular problems. However, even in this traditional jury area we have said that it may be appropriate for a court to direct a verdict as a matter of law that a person is not guilty by reason of insanity. Isaac v. United States, 109 U.S.App.D.C. 34, 284 F.2d 168 (1960); Satterwhite v. United States, 105 U.S.App.D.C. 398, 267 F.2d 675 (1959); Fielding v. United States, 102 U.S.App.D.C. 167, 251 F.2d 878 (1957); Wright v. United States, 102 U.S.App.D.C. 36, 250 F.2d 4 (1957); Douglas v. United States, 99 U.S.App.D.C. 232, 239 F.2d 52 (1956); and see Brock v. United States, 5 Cir., 387 F.2d 254 (1967).
In this case we are not dealing with the area of criminal responsibility. And we do not have to decide the issue of causation—whether a person’s act was the product of his disease. Rather, Congress has defined a type of person it intended for commitment. It is appropriate for this court to match the judicial construction of the two central parts of this definition—“not insane” and “lack of power to control his sexual impulses,” both of which must be satisfied before the Act can be applied— to see whether the statute as a matter of law is self-contradictory. If the state of medical knowledge were substantially ambiguous, or if the development of the law relating to mental illness had not progressed as far as it has, I would permit the statute to stand (and allow the jury to search for those people coming within the Act). However, after examining the authorities we can say with reasonable certitude that persons evidencing the kind of lack of control called for by the statute must of necessity come within the legal definition of mental illness.
The problem is narrow. The statutory language, “a course of repeated misconduct in sexual matters” and “lack of power to control his sexual impulses,” obviously comes within that part of the McDonald-Alexander definition dealing with substantial impairment of behavior controls. The only question, then, is whether such persons also suffer from the other requirement of McDonald-Alexander, an “abnormal condition of the mind.” I shall look to two sources to see if this latter condition is met: (1) medical literature, and (2) the experience of St. Elizabeths Hospital with this statute in general and with Maurice Millard in particular.10
*982A. Medical Literature
As early as 1950 the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, in its Committee on Forensic Psychiatry, studied this area. Its report, PsYchiatrically Deviated Sex Offenders (Report No. 9, 1950), recommended that repetitive sex offenders be treated as mentally ill. Relevant here are the criteria recommended by the Committee for psychiatrists to use in determining whether a sex offender is mentally disordered. The criteria included:
“1. Repetitive Compulsive Acts
Repetitive compulsive acts having a (dynamic) pattern of similarity and carried out to the point of community intolerance. Such acts manifest heedless disregard of consequences and seek and attain ultimate expression even if momentary obstacles are encountered.
“2. Forced Relations
The forcing of sexual relations implies non-compliance on the part of the offended party. Forced relations may be either hetero- or homosexual.” Report, p. 2.
In 1954 Dr. Benjamin Karpman, then Chief Psychotherapist at St. Elizabeths Hospital, published his book The Sexual Offender and His Offenses, Etiology, Pathology, psychodynamics and Treatment (1954). Dr. Karpman examined sexual deviancy from a psychoanalytic or psychogenic viewpoint. He discussed sexual deviancy by reference to the morally neutral term paraphilia, including among the paraphilias pedophilia, homosexuality, exhibitionism and voyeurism, frottage and fetishism.11 Dr. Karp-man noted:
“ * * * Modern psychiatry * * has come to recognize that these are not degeneracies, but illnesses in the full sense of the word, having specific etiologies and courses, and as being fully amenable to treatment as are other psychic diseases. * * * ” P. 384.
Paraphilia is seen as akin to neurosis:
“Thus, when viewed in terms of genetic dynamics, paraphilias and neuroses are * * * sisters under the skin and basically the same. Paraphilias are neuroses in every sense of the word as measured by the usual standards with which we commonly evaluate neuroses. * * * Like neuroses they are the results of lifelong, thwarted development * * P. 388.12
*983Dr. Karpman discussed the term sex psychopath, decrying its general looseness of meaning. Sex psychopaths who exhibit lack of control over compulsive sexual impulses are, he felt, a sub-group within the paraphilias, a group whose aberrant sexual behavior has developed along antisocial routes. He put to one side people who commit isolated abnormal acts, and people whose sexually deviant behavior is the result of situational pressures (e. g., absence of normal sexual objects in the environment). His discussion centered on those individuals whose actions are “an expression of an uncontrollable urge, committed without logic or rationale, under the influence of a strong, overpowering drive.” P. 478. Psychiatry views repeated deviation of this sort as “part of a large group of behavior disorders * * *.” P. 478.
Dr. Karpman clearly described, under the heading “Chief Characteristics of Sexual Psychopathy,” the sick character of such persons, and the need to treat them with established psychiatric techniques :
“ * * * There is little doubt that the reactions that are attributed to sexual psychopaths are beyond the sphere of conscious or voluntary control * * *. As neuroses, they have their specific causations, which may be of long-past origin that only at the moment has manifested itself by the particular sexual violation. Dynamic psychiatry views these reactions as neuroses, which in the fullest sense they are. It ascribes less importance to constitutional or immediate personal factors than it does to functional, deep-seated psychogenic emotional factors. For this reason, it has long attempted to cure sexual psychopaths in the samé manner as it treats other neurotics. Amazingly enough, many such patients have responded to psychotherapy and actually improved and in some instances were entirely cured, when the specific etiology was uncovered and the person was given the opportunity to discharge the unhealthy and repressed emotions.” P. 483.
For other psychoanalytic explanations of sexual deviation, see Friedman, Sexual Deviations, in 1 American Handbook of Psychiatry, ch. 29 (1959); Socarides, Meaning and Content of a Pedophiliac Perversion, 7 J. of Am. Psychoan. Ass’n 84 (1959).
A classic text in the area is Dr. Clifford Allen’s A Textbook of Psychosex-ual Disorders (1962). When published in 1962 it was the first textbook of psychosexual diseases, an indication of the recent development of psychiatric learning in this field. Dr. Allen prefaced his text with the statement that “it is felt that psychosexual diseases are now an acceptable part of the corpus of respectable medicine.” P. ix. He pointed out that as diseases they should be treated, and felt that “the paraphilias, or psychosexual disorders, are as capable of treatment as any other neuroses.” P. 370. Thus the text attempted to “examine sexual abnormality in the same way as any other illness.” P. 400.
Among the types of persons discussed are the types who have been committed in the District under the Sexual Psychopath Act. See Note 11, supra. For example, one chapter is devoted to frotteurism and scoptophilia-exhibitionism, another to infantosexuality (pedophilia). The discussion centers on the psychopathology and treatment of such disorders. Dr. Allen makes clear that they are mental disorders. For instance, after a review of the literature he mentions two writers who attempted to “explain exhibitionism on grounds other than psychological,” and concludes that “[i]t is obvious that they could not have gone deeply into the patients’ psyche—as indeed their paper indicates they failed to do.” P. 154.
Studies of sex offenders have referred to the mental disorders of those offenders who are subject to repeated uncontrollable impulses. The need for tradi*984tional psychiatric treatment such as individual and group psychotherapy has been pointed out. See, e. g., J. Mohr., R. Turner & M. Jerry, Pedophilia and Exhibitionism (1964); Peters, Pedigo, Steg & McKenna, Group Psychotherapy of the Sex Offender, 32 Fed. Probation 41 (September 1968).
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, supra, lists “sexual deviation” as a mental disorder. This is defined as:
“individuals whose sexual interests are directed primarily toward objects other than people of the opposite sex, toward sexual acts not usually associated with coitus, or toward coitus performed under bizarre circumstances as in necrophilia, pedophilia, sexual sadism, and fetishism. Even though many find their practices distasteful, they remain unable to substitute normal sexual behavior for them. This diagnosis is not appropriate for individuals who perform deviant sexual acts because normal sexual objects are not available to them.” P. 44.
B. St. Elizabeths Hospital and Maurice Millard
From July 31, 1961 through October 30, 1968, 31 persons were committed to St. Elizabeths via the Sexual Psychopath Act. The diagnostic breakdown of these 31 persons is;13
Personality disorder 26
Neurosis 2
Chronic brain syndrome 2
Without mental disorder 1
These data confirm the view that persons validly coming within the statute are mentally disordered. The one exception is accounted for in the draft report by Dr. Dorothy S. Dobbs of St. Elizabeths (Characteristics of Prisoner-Patients Admitted to Saint Elizabeths Hospital), at p. 3;
“ * * * One patient was found without mental disorder. In this somewhat unusual situation, the judicial determination followed psychiatric examination at D. C. General Hospital; examination here did not reveal sufficient psychopathology to warrant a diagnosis, and, further, the offense probably had no sexual motivation.”
Thus the one exception is explainable by the fact that one person was illegally committed. If that person’s actions were not sexually motivated, then the statute’s requirement of uncontrollable sexual impulses was not met.
Focusing particularly on Maurice Millard, the Government is arguing here that Millard, despite his exhibitionsim, is validly committed and thus is not mentally ill. The St. Elizabeths doctors who testified at Millard’s hearing hold a different view.
Millard was diagnosed, and the diagnosis was not challenged by any of the doctors, as a passive-aggressive personality, passive-dependent type — exhibitionism. I note first that personality disorders, and specifically passive-aggressive personality, are listed as mental disorders in the Diagnostic Manual.
Dr. Dale C. Cameron, then Superintendent of St. Elizabeths, testified about Millard as follows:
“ * * * He has not fully conpleted his treatment program at the hospital. * * * [W]e are not fully certain that he would not be harmful to others because of his mental disorder at this time.”
Later the following colloquy took place:
A [by Dr. Cameron] * * * [W]hen he was hospitalized * * * there was an attempt to interrupt the disease process, to stop it. * * *
Q Could you state, precisely, what the disease is which has been interrupted at the hospital ?
* * * * * *
A Without going through the entire record, I see * * * the diagnosis “passive-aggressive personality” is carried. * * *
*985Dr. George Weiekhardt of St. Eliza-beths described Millard’s treatment. He stated that Millard had diagnostic studies, somatic therapy, psychotherapy (individual and group), nursing and ward care, milieu therapy, educational therapy, industrial therapy, patient government, and soon will be tested with grounds privileges. In short, Millard is being given the broad range of treatment offered to most types of mentally ill patients at St. Elizabeths. Dr. Weick-hardt, in defending Millard’s treatment program, stated “it’s like the treatment of any illness * *
Dr. Luther D. Robinson, also of St. Elizabeths, described Millard’s treatment. He noted that Millard was placed in West Lodge, a general ward with patients who have all sorts of mental problems. No special section is reserved for, and no special type of treatment program is given to, sexual psychopaths. Dr. Robinson testified, as did Dr. Cameron, Dr. Weiekhardt and Dr. Michael Miller, that psychotherapy would be a favored treatment. Dr. Robinson participated in the following colloquy:
Q Are you familiar with the clinical diagnosis that has been rendered for Mr. Millard?
A Yes, I am.
Q What is that diagnosis?
A Passive aggressive reaction, passive dependent type — exhibitionism.
Q In the psychiatric terminology, is this diagnosis regarded as a psychiatric illness?
A Yes, it is.
Q Isn’t it, rather, a personality disorder?
******
A It is a personality disorder but it is a mental illness.
The experience with Millard, and at St. Elizabeths in general, thus confirms the view taken in the literature discussed above. If the statute is construed, as is required, to apply only to repeated sexual offenders who cannot control sexual impulses and thus act on them to the harm of others, it is hardly conceivable that such a person in 1968 could be regarded as other than mentally ill as defined in McDonald-Alexander. Thus the District of Columbia Act suffers from a self-destructive internal contradiction — a sex psychopath as defined therein must of necessity be mentally ill —which renders it unenforceable.14
*986IV
Declaring the District of Columbia Sexual Psychopath Act unenforceable does not mean that society’s hands are tied in dealing with the problem. The contrary is true. There are presently available two clear channels through which sex offenders can be dealt with. Those whose actions are isolated acts or the product of controllable urges can be prosecuted under a variety of criminal statutes, depending upon the nature of the act. The others, those who are subject to repeated impulses and drives which they are powerless to check, can, if they pose a danger to society, be committed under the general civil commitment statute.15
In sum, the alternatives to the Sexual Psychopath Act cover the field, rendering the statute needless. The statute’s forced isolation of one aspect of a person’s personality makes it psychiatrically artificial. The statute may run afoul of the Constitution in several respects. And finally, the statute’s own definition of sex psychopath has been pressed into a self-contradictory and meaningless pulp by the expansion of medical and legal thought over the past 20 years.
WILBUR K. MILLER, Senior Circuit Judge, dissents.

. 62 Stat. 347 (1948), 22 D.C.Code §§ 3501-3511 (1967).

. See, e.g., Bolton v. Harris, 130 U.S.App.D.C. 1, 395 F.2d 642 (1968).

. Minnesota ex rel. Pearson v. Probate Court of Ramsey County, 309 U.S. 270, 273, 60 S.Ct. 523, 525, 84 L.Ed. 744 (1940).

. 21 D.C.Code § 315 (1961).

. 21 D.C.Code § 545(b) (1967).

. This concession was required because a mentally ill person committed under the 1964 civil commitment act is entitled to a whole raft of procedural safeguards, as well as fairly narrow grounds for obtaining his release. See, e.g., 21 D.C. Code § 543 (preliminary determination by Commission on Mental Health) ; § 544 (notification in writing of right to jury trial) ; §§ 546, 548 (periodic examination; release criteria). These protections are not available to the person committed under the Sexual Psychopath Act. Thus if the latter act were held to apply to a person mentally ill, the differential treatment accorded to such mentally ill persons would raise evident equal protection problems.

. “Although it is true that the psychiatrists in this case were reluctant to label appellant’s illness a psychosis, or in fact to attempt to fit it specifically into any of the various classes of mental illness recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, the thrust of their testimony was that appellant was suffering from a condition which substantially impaired his mental health, that this condition was interrelated with his mental deficiency, and that his antisocial behavior occurred as a result and manifestation of this underlying mental illness. We are satisfied * * * that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find that * * * appellant was suffering from a mental illness. * * * ”

. “Sexual psychopath is defined substantially in the language used by the Minnesota Supreme Court in interpreting the definition of the Minnesota statute. This interpretation was accepted by the Supreme Court of the United States in Minnesota ex rel. Pearson v. Probate Court, supra. * * * ”
S-Rep-No. 1377, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 6 (1948).

. See Lomax v. District of Columbia, D.C. C.A. 211 A.2d 772 (1965).

. I note that frequently in the literature and in the discussions of psychiatrists, mental problems are referred to as mental disorders. Perhaps at one time it would have been appropriate to hassle over whether a disorder is really an illness. I think we are now beyond that. The term disorder is used to encompass a broad variety of mental ills, ranging from psychoses to character defects. In any functional sense the term clearly refers to illness in the meaning appropriate here—an abnormal mental condition for which medical treatment is felt to be appropriate. Thus the standard manual for diagnosis used by psychiatrists, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disobdees (2d ed. 1967), reflects this approach. Schizophrenia and other psychoses are listed as mental disorders, along with non-psychotic conditions. And that the Manual is designed to aid doctors in dealing with sick people is clear:
“In publishing the Manual the Association provides a service to the psychiatrists of the United States and presents a nomenclature that is usable in mental hospitals, psychiatric clinics, and in office practice. It has, in fact, a wider usage because of the growth of psychiatric work in general hospitals, both on psychiatric wards and in consultation services to the patients in other hospital departments, and in comprehensive community mental health centers. It will also be used in consultations to courts and industrial health services.”
Manual, Foreword, p. viii.

. Experience with a statute such as the District of Columbia’s (which excludes persons charged with rape) is that exhibitionists and pedophiles form the bulk of persons committed under the statute, with some frotteurs and some overt homosexuals who make repeated public advances also included. For example, the reported cases under the statute showed: the present case (exhibitionist) ; Clatterbuck v. Overholser, 107 U.S.App.D.C. 340, 278 F.2d 20 (1960) (pedophile) ; Miller v. Overholser, 92 U.S.App.D.C. 110, 206 F.2d 415 (1953) (pedophile) ; Lomax v. District of Columbia, supra Note 9 (exhibitionist) ; and Carras v. District of Columbia, D.C.Mun.App., 183 A.2d 393 (1962) (exhibitionist). From July 1, 1961 through October 30, 1968, 31 persons were committed to St. Elizabeths under the statute. The breakdown as to types of offenses is:
Exhibitionism 16
Pedophilia 9
Indecent assault (on adult female) 3
Voyeurism 1
Homosexuality 1
Indecent proposals 1
Letter from Dr. Dorothy S. Dobbs, St. Elizabeths Hospital, November 15, 1968.

. “ * * * Dynamic psychiatry sees in paraphilias profound disturbances in the sex life of the person and patterns of sexual behavior not directed ultimately toward procreation, the goal of all normal sex life. The paraphiliac has not matured sexually, having failed to integrate his sexual needs and activities in such a way as to accord with socially accepted modes of sexual expression. He represents a kind of sex life that at an early period of development lost its normal goal, or rather, never having reached it, detoured into aberrant channels leading to an abortive aim-inhibited sexual activity. * * * [T]he behavior is most persistent because it is so close to the instinctive. * * * People suffering from paraphiliac neuro*983ses are driven compulsively to seek gratification of an apparently insatiable urge.”
B. Karpman, The Sexual Offender and His Offenses 479 (1954).

. Letter, supra Note 11.

. This disposition makes it unnecessary to reach several constitutional issues which trouble the statute. First, as noted supra at Note 6, if the “not insane” jjro-vision of the statute is taken in its old meaning, the Act would apply to some mentally ill persons, raising equal protection problems.
Second, when construed as excluding mentally ill persons, the statute’s purpose becomes to a great degree preventive detention. There is a grave problem, as Judge Bazelon notes, whether for non-sick individuals “the state can ever confine a citizen against his will simply because he is likely to be dangerous in the future.” And even without reaching this issue, it is clear that such commitment would be constitutionally suspect if it could be instituted without the full measure of safeguards afforded a defendant in a criminal proceeding. The statute, in § 3508, provides that a person has a right to a jury, and to a hearing at which “[t]he rules of evidence applicable in judicial proceedings in the court” apply, but it is not clear whether this includes the full protection against self-incrimination and the complete right of confrontation. Without them the statute’s constitutionality would be precarious.
Finally, the statute may be vulnerable to an attack as vague. The Supreme Court, in Pearson, su^pra Note 3, avoided this claim by construing the act to apply only to those who utterly lack the power to control repeated sexual impulses and who are therefore likely to inflict substantial harm on their victims. However, this is the construction we have found to be equated with mental illness. A lesser construction would thus reopen the vagueness issue. Further, the void-for-vagueness doctrine has come a long way since the Pearson case was decided in 1940, as has the state of knowledge regarding sexual behavior. There are appropriate occasions when a court can, in light of increasing knowledge and legal doctrine, question the validity of an old decision of that court or of a higher court. See England v. Louisiana State Board of Medical *986Examiners, 5 Cir., 259 F.2d 626 (1958), on petition for rehearing, 263 F.2d 661, cert. denied, 359 U.S. 1012, 79 S.Ct. 1149, 3 L.Ed.2d 1036 (1959) ; Dawson v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City, 4 Cir., 220 F.2d 386, cert. denied, 350 U.S. 877, 76 S.Ct. 133, 100 L.Ed. 774 (1955). It may be that a renewed attack on the statute, even as construed in Pearson, would successfully fell it as too vague to authorize commitment.

. The issue of dangerousness, as Judge Bazelon notes, is a barrier on which this statute has been foundering. The statute requires that the harm focused on as the prerequisite for commitment be that caused by the person’s sexual activities. By focusing on a particular aspect of the person, the statute forces psychiatrists into a sterile attempt to isolate a part of a person’s behavior from his total personality.
The doctors here were unable to do this. It is folly to have expected them to. As Dr. Winfred Overholser, former Superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital, stated in 1947, the year before the Sexual Psychopath Act was enacted:
“If sex relations were merely the satisfaction of a physical urge, as they are in animals, the matter might be different ; but in people the sex function is so tied up with emotion, so much at the mercy of thoughts, beliefs, prejudices, taboos and superstitions, that in very many instances the instinct itself cannot function in a normal manner. The whole personality is involved, not merely the sexual function.”
W. Overholser & W. Richmond, Handbook of Psychiatry 19 (1947).
Yet the statute clearly viewed sexual psychopathy as a psychiatric problem. Sections 3506 and 3507 require that two psychiatrists examine the person and it is their reports which form the basis on which his commitment hearing proceeds. This supports the view that the problems the statute deals with should be seen in the broader context of mental illness, a context in which psychiatrists can make meaningful estimates about a person based on an integrated view of his whole personality.