UNDUE DETAINMENT
Last April, when New York passed a civil confinement law for sex offenders, it was seen as a political compromise designed to keep those offenders with mental disorders off the streets after being released from prison. Yesterday, however, Southern District Judge Gerard Lynch ruled that parts of the New York law violated due process rights, most notably the provision that specifies detention of released sex offenders before the trial to determine whether probable cause - a “mental abnormality” that should result in further detention - exists. The New York Law Journal has the story. “Such detention is potentially catastrophic,” Judge Lynch said. “Not only will the intervenor lose his liberty, but he will likely lose his job and his house, and default on his loans . . . deprived of more liberty before he is adjudicated in need of treatment, based on a mere showing of probable cause to believe treatment is required, than New York seeks to impose after he is shown by clear and convincing evidence to need treatment.”

DON'T STAND AROUND HERE NO MORE 
Meanwhile, in one of several cases on the docket yesterday, the New York State Court of Appeals threw out the conviction of a man arrested for standing on a corner of Times Square in 2004 and not moving, causing “numerous pedestrians in the area . . . to walk around” him and his friends, according to the arresting officer. The New York Times reports. “Nothing in the information indicates how the defendant, when he stood in the middle of a sidewalk at 2:01 a.m., had the intent to or recklessly created a risk of causing ‘public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm,’ ” wrote Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick. She added later, “Something more than a mere inconvenience of pedestrians is required to support the charge. Otherwise, any person who happens to stop on a sidewalk — whether to greet another, to seek directions or simply to regain one’s bearings — would be subject to prosecution under this statute.”

SIBLING RIVALRY
Elsewhere, Newsday reports that the state’s highest court also said yesterday that it would not rule on a dispute between members of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect. The factions couldn’t determine who was the appropriate successor after “grand rabbi” Moses Teitelbaum died last year at the age of 91. Two of his sons are vying for the post. The Satmar Hasidic sect has 65,000 to 75,000 members nationwide, but most of them live in New York state, predominately in Williamsburg and the town of Kiryas Joel, about 45 miles northwest of New York City. “The First Amendment forbids civil courts from interfering in or determining religious disputes, because there is substantial danger that the state will become entangled in essentially religious controversies or intervene on behalf of groups espousing particular doctrines or beliefs,” wrote Judge Eugene Pigott, Jr.

WILL THE GRINCH GO ON? 
Bloomberg has a story about how the producer of the Broadway musical “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” wants a judge to recognize a loophole that would allow the show to continue at the St. James theatre and avoid the devastating strike by the stagehands union. Daniel Waggett argued before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Helen Freedman that the production should be exempt from the strike since it has a separate contract with the union allowing more performances per week than the average Broadway show. But Rocco Landesman, president of Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns the St. James, says he has the right to close the theater during a strike because of his own contract with the stagehands. Said Landesman, “Having ‘The Grinch’ at the St. James for two months is like having any other show for five months.” Yet despite “devastating losses," ’The Grinch’ wouldn't reopen until the stagehands end their strike against Broadway theaters.