The State Supreme Court has decided not to hear oral arguments on a challenge to the state law that lets the state hold sexual predators indefinitely, even after they’ve finished their prison terms. Lawyers for the state and for James Francis will submit written briefs instead, and the Court will rule on those. Francis was convicted of sodomizing a five year old boy 14 years ago, in southwest Missouri’s Butler County. Two years ago a jury in Poplar Bluff ruled he might molest other children if he was allowed to go free. He’s been in the Sexual Offender Treatment Center in Farmington since. He says the law is unconstitutional because it violates his constitutional right of due process.
