Word: mental
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Leroy Hendricks had done his time. In August 1994, after serving 10 years for taking "indecent liberties" with two 13-year-old boys, Hendricks walked out of prison in Hutchinson, Kans.--and was almost immediately transported to the Larned Correctional Mental Health Facility, where he has been locked up ever since. Under a 1994 state law called the Sexually Violent Predator Act, a judge ordered Hendricks confined indefinitely after ruling that his "mental abnormality" made him likely to attack again. Hendricks challenged the constitutionality of that law, but last week, in a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld...
...American justice system punishes criminals for what they have done, not for what they might do. Only those deemed dangerous and insane are locked away to protect themselves and society from their potential actions. Hendricks' lawyers argued that the "mental abnormality" clause in the Kansas statute created too low and too vague a standard for committing a person and so was a violation of due process. They also claimed that the law subjected Hendricks to double jeopardy and that it violated the Constitution's ex post facto clause, which forbids the enactment of new laws that extend punishment for past...
...court was not convinced. Writing for the majority, Clarence Thomas asserted that the Kansas law's standard for what constitutes a dangerous mental illness was as strict as the standards in many laws the court has long upheld. Thomas further concluded that since the Kansas law was a version of these well-established "civil commitment" statutes, Hendricks' confinement could not be considered "punishment"--because punishment, in constitutional terms, arises from criminal proceedings, not civil ones...
DIED. PETER BLOS, 93, compassionate psychoanalyst who pioneered the exploration of adolescent angst; in New York City. In The Adolescent Passage, Blos argued that the psychic battles waged during the teenage years help determine an adult's mental health...
...step or two in any direction or lie down. And because Premarin farmers receive more money for concentrated urine, these helpless mares are denied adequate amounts of water and suffer from dehydration, in addition to a host of other illnesses. Within a few years, they become physical and mental wrecks who end up in slaughter houses, as do their babies, who are the by-products of the Premarin industry. Each year, many tens of thousands of foals are sold to feed lots, where they're fattened until they reach meat weight. Then they're slaughtered and end up on dinner...