Lawsuit Could Change Minnesota's Sex Offender Program
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Testimony begins Monday in a lawsuit that could bring big changes to Minnesota's sex offender program.
In Minnesota, there are 700 sex offenders kept away in indefinite treatment, more than in any other state.
The offenders argue there are no clear rules or paths to ever being released, even though the offenders have already served time behind bars for their crimes. Of the 700 sex offenders in the program, only two have ever been released with supervision in the last 21 years.
While the offenders are technically patients or clients of the state, they are housed in maximum security prison-type settings in Moose Lake and St. Peter.
U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank will rule on whether or not the current program violates 14th amendment Constitutional rights to Due Process in a trial that is expected to last about one month.
Hamline University Political Science Professor David Schultz said Minnesota's sex offender treatment program has major problems and the judge is likely to rule the program is unconstitutional. Schultz said state lawmakers have been reluctant to act on the controversial issue despite past pressures from federal judges.
"I doubt any legislator or any party wants to be the party that says it changed a program to put more sex offenders on the street," Schultz said.
If Judge Frank finds the program unconstitutional and state lawmakers do not rework the program in a timely manner after the ruling, the judge could take over and release some of the people in the program.
"The state lawmakers would have to determine what it takes to get released from the program," Schultz said.
