Christopher Evans Hubbart v. Robert Knapp Atascadero State Hospital

Christopher Hubbart claims that his commitment under California’s Sexually Violent Predator Act (“SVPA”), Cal. Welf. & Inst.Code § 6600, et seq., violates federal due process and equal protection, and he seeks habeas corpus relief. Hubbart was the first person confined under this latest California civil commitment statute, and his case follows an evolution of state efforts, civil and criminal, to contain and rehabilitate recidivist sex offenders. The California courts have rejected Hubbart’s facial challenge to the SVPA and upheld its specific application in his case. On August 23, 2003, the district court denied Hubbart’s federal habeas corpus petition. We affirm.

Hubbart admits to raping “about” 40 women throughout California between 1971 and 1982. He has been held under at least three different regulatory schemes designed to detain, treat and rehabilitate sex offenders. Two of these schemes have since been revoked. In fact, the government concedes that Hubbart was illegally detained for psychiatric treatment under former parole revocation regulation, Cal. Code Regs. tit. 15, § 2616 (a)(7) (1994). Hubbart argues that this error is perpetuated by his commitment under the SVPA in…