By BILL DRAPER
The Associated Press
Friday, June 20, 2003; 6:30 PM
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A convicted sex offender who prosecutors sought to keep confined after his prison term ended, leading the U.S. Supreme Court to set limits on the extended confinement of sexual predators, has been charged with raping a woman after his release.
Michael T. Crane, 41, was arrested Wednesday and charged with attacking a woman in her car outside an apartment on March 22.
He is being held without bond in Jackson County jail on three counts of forcible sodomy and one count each of rape, assault and kidnapping. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 27.
Crane was seeking a public defender.
“We have spent the last 10 years, almost continuously, battling to keep Michael Crane in prison,” said Paul J. Morrison, who prosecuted Crane’s earlier case in Kansas. “You can’t help but feel very badly when you feel the system has failed.”
Crane, who had served probation for other sex crimes, was convicted in 1994 in Johnson County, Kan., for attacking a video store clerk in the Kansas City suburb of Leawood.
Crane, who had served probation for other sex crimes, was convicted in 1994 in Johnson County, Kan., for attacking a video store clerk in the Kansas City suburb of Leawood.
As he was approaching release, the state sought to have him kept in confinement, and a jury determined him to be a violent sexual predator. The Kansas Supreme Court overturned that finding, but Crane remained in confinement while the state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
As he was approaching release, the state sought to have him kept in confinement, and a jury determined him to be a violent sexual predator. The Kansas Supreme Court overturned that finding, but Crane remained in confinement while the state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Kansas court had said the state would have to show that inmates totally lacked control of their behavior, but the federal high court said it was enough to prove “serious difficulty in controlling behavior.”
Crane, who remained in custody for more than three years after finishing his sentence, was released in January last year after doctors concluded his mental condition had changed and that he was no longer a threat.
This month, DNA from semen in the latest attack was matched to Crane’s, authorities said.
The current charges against Crane carry a penalty of up to life in prison if he is convicted.
Morrison said the Kansas and U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the state’s 1994 sexual predator law made it impossible for Kansas to continue to hold Crane as a violent predator. Crane had already been through the predator treatment program.
Morrison said the Kansas and U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the state’s 1994 sexual predator law made it impossible for Kansas to continue to hold Crane as a violent predator. Crane had already been through the predator treatment program.
The Kansas law, similar to those in about 20 states, allows indefinite confinement of violent sex offenders beyond their prison term if they suffer from mental abnormalities making them likely to commit similar crimes in the future.
John C. Donham of Olathe, Kan., who represented Crane during the Kansas and Supreme Court proceedings, said Crane should not have remained confined because he was not mentally ill.
“The U.S. Supreme Court clearly stated in the past that the government cannot involuntarily commit someone to a mental hospital because he’s proven to be dangerous,” Donham said. “You have to prove someone is both mentally ill and, as a result of that illness, dangerous.”
© 2003 The Associated Press