New civil trials ordered for two sexual predators

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Two men who were committed to state custody as sexually violent predators deserve new civil trials because of flawed jury instructions, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

The decision applies specifically to the two men who appealed but will affect most of the 26 people held under the state's sexual predator law, the Missouri attorney general's office said.

Missouri law allows detention of convicted sex offenders beyond their prison sentences if a jury -- in a separate civil trial -- determines they have a mental abnormality that makes them "more likely than not" to commit sexually violent acts upon release.

Lawyers for convicted sex offenders Eddie Thomas and Desi Edwards filed appeals earlier this year, claiming the instructions given to the juries in the two men's civil trials failed to meet federal requirements.

Their appeals cited a January decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on a similar Kansas law.

In that case, the nation's highest court said jury instructions must require a finding that the person's mental abnormality causes "serious difficulty in controlling behavior."

Such language was absent from the jury instructions in civil trials of Thomas, Edwards and about two dozen people whom Missouri juries found to be sexually violent predators.