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| | There are problems associated with the application of VRA to each element.
i) History of Sexual Offenses |
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< | The first is a question of social policy: a history of sexual offenses seems like a reliable factor, since investigators can simply look at an offender's criminal record, but what about a first-time offender who could recidivate? If the purpose of civil commitment here is to prevent future danger to society, is it justifiable to curtail the offender's rights if he has no known history of sexual offenses? |
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> | The first is a question of social policy: a history of sexual offenses seems like a reliable factor, since investigators can simply look at an offender's criminal record, but what about a first-time offender who could
recidivate? If the purpose of civil commitment here is to prevent future danger to society, is it justifiable to curtail the offender's rights if he has no known history of sexual offenses?
- How about "reoffend," "relapse," or even "repeat"? Did you really need to disinter a particularly ugly verb that no one has used in a published English sentence since 1677?
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| | ii) Mental Abnormality
The diagnosis of "mental abnormality" is problematic because diagnoses of sexual disorders are often unreliable, with different psychologists agreeing on diagnoses at a rate little better than chance. (Marshall, cited in Miller) |
| | Rehnquist
Chief Justice Rehnquist's concerns about Daubert --"...it imposes on [judges] either the obligation or the authority to become amateur scientists in order to perform that role"--have been realized. |
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- This isn't an essay designed to carry a reader along through the development of an idea. It's a shopping list of arguments made elsewhere.
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| | The Future
Menzies Argument
After two moderately successful attempts at building a better mousetrap (a multidimensional predictive instrument), Menzies came to the conclusion that predictions of dangerousness are too important to the legal system and society to be abandoned altogether, even if the data supporting some of the methodology is equivocal. (Menzies) He advocated that mental health professionals be limited to an advisory rather than determinant role in legal proceedings, because the step up to the greater role risks overreaching the existing science. |
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- Excuse me? Why should the reader give a flying anything at all about someone called Menzies? As mentioned above, this isn't an essay anymore, just a cranial blood clot.
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| | Conclusion
Limiting mental health professionals' predictions of future dangerousness to the sentencing phase of criminal trials because the evidence is likely to be more prejudicial than probative would help: obviously, that a person is dangerous generally--particularly when as a result of mental illness--does not necessarily mean they are guilty of the crime for which they have been charged. The increased role of judges as the gatekeepers of admissibility since the Daubert ruling means that improved, clearer legal standards may also be needed to help the judges avoid misapplication of the evidence rules or the standards on which experts are asked to testify. |
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- What was there in this thesis that required you to adopt such crabbed means of communication? It isn't as though anything very innovative or doubtful were getting said.
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| | Authorities/Works Cited
Gatowski, Dobbin, Richardson, Ginsburg, Merlino, & Dahir, “Asking the Gatekeepers,” Law & Human Behavior, Vol. 25, No. 5, (October 2001), pp. 433-457 |
| | Kansas Sexually Violent Predator Act, K.S.A. 59-29a01 et seq. (1994) |
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- Why do this sort of thing in a Wiki? In many cases here there were available live links, and you should have made them.
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