Kansas Court of Appeals Rules Recidivist Law for Sex Offenders Is Too Harsh

September 30, 2012

The Kansas Court of Appeals recently ruled the imposition of lifetime post-release supervision for a sex offender who committed a low-grade felony is unconstitutional. The court compared the recidivist statutes for sex offenders to the corresponding rules for murderers and found "even murderers are not treated so harshly." With that finding, the court concluded that the lifetime post-release supervision of a young Kansas man violated the Eighth Amendment's protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

The court's ruling stems from a case that began in 2009. A teenager, Daniel Proctor, had multiple sexual encounters with a 12-year-old boy while staying with the boy's family. Proctor pleaded guilty in 2010 to aggravated indecent solicitation of a child and lewd and lascivious behavior. According to the Courthouse News Service, the 19-year-old was sentenced to 44 months of probation, with prison time suspended because he had no prior criminal history and because he himself had been the victim of sexual abuse.

Proctor then entered a treatment program and faced lifetime post-release supervision if he violated probation. Thus, if Proctor committed another crime of any magnitude during post-release supervision he could be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Believing the potential extremely harsh punishment was unconstitutional, Proctor challenged the law.

The Kansas Court of Appeals reviewed the lifetime post-release supervision statute in light of the Eighth Amendment and found that the law constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Amendment. In the explanation of its ruling, the Court posed a hypothetical and asked what would happen to Proctor if he committed and pleaded guilty to a low-level felony, such as writing a bad check or shoplifting a $1,000 ring. Answering its own question, the court said the violation of the post-release supervision would require Proctor to return to prison for the rest of his life. The court found the resulting punishment to be disproportionate to the second offense while on probation.

The court further explained and said that while an individual who commits a sexually based person felony and later commits a low-level nonperson felony like forgery or theft does not deserve praise, but that the conduct demonstrates a de-escalation of criminality and should therefore be punished proportionately. Therefore the court found that the statute does not punish proportionately, but instead uses the most extreme punishment no matter the secondary offense. The court said that while escalating punishment to include a life sentence for repeat sex offenders makes sense, the same sentence for a single sex offense followed by a minor criminal offense does not.

If you have been accused of a sex crime in Kansas, contact an experienced criminal defense attorney to protect your legal rights.

Article provided by Garretson, Webb & Toth, LLC
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