On February 25, 2002, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and vacated the judgment in In re Martinelli, 2000 WL 1285430 (Minn.App. 2000)(unpublished), review denied, (Minn. 2000)(unpublished), where the Minnesota Courts held that under the Act, the State must show that an offender is likely to be dangerous in the future because a “mental disorder does not allow them to adequately control their sexual impulses.”  In granting certiorari in Martinelli v. Minnesota, No. 00-9046, 2002 WL 257019, the U.S. Supreme court remanded the case back to the Minnesota Courts for reconsideration in light of its January 22, 2002, decision in Kansas v. Crane, (2002) 534 U.S. 407, 122 S.Ct. 867, where the Court said that to commit an offender, a state must prove that the individual has “serious difficulty in controlling behavior.” 

The petition for a writ of certiorari in the Minnesota case asked whether the state’s test for control of sexually dangerous behavior, in utilizing the term “adequate control” without any further definition, sufficiently channeled discretion to comply with due process during civil commitment proceedings. 

A brief chronology of Minnesota’s civil commitment laws helps explain the evolution of the “adequate control” phase.  Minnesota’s original civil commitment law, enacted in 1939, provided for the civil commitment of persons with psychopathic personalities.  The statute was challenged in State ex rel. Pearson v. Probate Court of Ramsey County, 205 Minn. 545, 287 N.W. 297 (1939), affirmed at 309 U.S. 270 (1940).  These decisions limited the statute‘s focus to provide that in order to commit a person as a psychopathic personality, the person must evidence an “utter lack of power to control their sexual impulses.” 

In 1992, Minnesota committed a high notoriety individual named Dennis Linehan, but the State Supreme Court reversed the decision in In re. Linehan, (Minn. 1994), 518 N.W. 2d 609, (“Linehan I”), holding he could not be committed because the state failed to present “clear and convincing evidence that appellant has an utter lack of power to control his sexual impulses.”  Id. At. 614. 

As a “knee-jerk reaction, the Minnesota Legislature passed the Sexually Dangerous Persons Act in 1994.  Upon enactment of the new statute, Minnesota again committed Linehan.  Three additional iterations of litigation ensured: Linehan II, In re Linehan, (Minn. 1996), 557 N.W. 2d 167, upholding the constitutionality of the Act.  Linehan III, In re Linehan, (Minn. 1996) 557 N.W. 2d 171, where similar to the present situation in Martinelli, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the decision and ordered Minnesota to reconsider Linehan III in light of the then recently decided Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346.  See Linehan v. Minnesota, (1997) 522 U.S. 1011.  Next came Linehan IV, In re Linehan, 594 N.W. 2d 867, cert. Denied, 528 U.S. 1049 (1999), which concluded that “[W]e now clarify that the [new] Act allows civil commitment of sexually dangerous persons who have engaged in a prior course of sexually harmful behavior and whose present disorder or dysfunction does not allow them to adequately control their sexual impulses, making it highly likely that they will engage in harmful sexual acts in the future.” 594 N.W. 2d at 874. 

This historical sequence of events now brings us to the In re Martinelli, where the Minnesota Appellate Court brought forth the Linehan IV rationale, holding that the State must show that an offender is likely to be dangerous in the future because of a mental disorder.  Somewhere in this evolution, Minnesota, like most other states with civil commitment Act, interpret the dangerousness, and adequate control of behavior, aspects of their Act’s requirements to mean that a mere prediction of recidivism labeled as dangerousness is sufficient to commit a person. 

In Minnesota, like most other states, “dangerousness” and “adequate control” is shown through the prediction of future dangerousness, or recidivism risk, where the state psychologists utilize “actuarial instruments,” such as the “MnSORT” or “Static 99,” etc., to perform a record review of the person’s past history, and from that, mathematically predict future recidivism.  This mathematical determination is then enhanced with the psychologist’s subjective opinion of the person’s future recidivism risk. 

None of those current commitment methods involve showing a person has a serious inability to control his present behavior.  Consequently, the U.S. Supreme Court has vacated and remanded yet another decision which was based on recidivism predictions.  The Court is confirming it meant what it said in Kansas v. Crane.  To send this message, that all civil commitment procedures must now be reevaluated in light of Crane, the court vacated and remanded In re Martinelli for reconsideration in light of the constitutional criteria set forth in Crane.