Letting Time Bombs Walk Free

It seems Jerome Arps will soon be one of too many walking time bombs set free, thanks to New York’s highest court. Arps raped a woman on the steps of The Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He’s been in prison since 2006, but he’s about to walk free because the New York Court of Appeals last year tightened the rules on when the state can keep the dangerously mentally ill in civil confinement.

Arps’ repeat behavior goes back years, all the way to helping gangrape a 14yearold girl when he was a minor. Experts testified that he’ll likely assault again if freed.

His “psychiatric condition makes him strongly predisposed to commit future sex offenses,” state psychiatrist Dr. Frances Charder said in court papers, calling him a psychopath with an antisocial personality disorder. That, she said, predisposes him to “gratify sexual urges in an illegal and deviant manner, without regard for the rights of others.”

Under pre2014 rules, that likely would’ve justified civil confinement. New York’s courts had upheld those rules ever since Gov. George Pataki launched his Sexually Violent Predators Initiative back in 2005.

But Democratic governors have shifted the state courts left. Last year, the Court of Appeals added new hoops the state must jump through to impose civil confinement.

OK: Judging the severity of mental illness, and the public threat it poses, is no easy task. Without limits, the power of civil commitment is sure to be abused.

But New York’s top court has unilaterally opted to make it harder to keep dangerous mentally ill convicts off the streets. It’s only a question of time before some innocent pays the price.