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Post-Sentence Confinement Statute Struck Down

By Jonathan Byrne

US v. Comstock: This was a challenge to 18 USC 4248, a portion of the Adam Walsh Act that allows the Government to commit someone indefinitely who is a "sexually dangerous" person prior to the expiration of a federal criminal sentence. Comstock and the other defendants in this consolidated case had all been detained past the end of their criminal sentence under the law. The district court concluded that the law exceeded Congress's authority and intruded on powers reserved to the states.On a Government appeal, the Fourth Circuit (as the first Circuit Court to deal with the issue) unanimously agreed with the district court and struck down the law. Relying on the Supreme Court's decisions in Lopez and Morrison, the court concluded that Congress's authority under the Commerce Clause did not extend so far as to reach the civil incarceration of people with no connection to interstate commerce...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Circuit Blog on January 12, 2009 (boomark / email).