February Trial Set For Sex Offenders Lawsuit

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- A Feb. 9 trial date has been set for a constitutional challenge to Minnesota's sex offenders treatment program.

U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank set the date Thursday during a hearing in St. Paul on the case.

Some 700 people are indefinitely committed to the program. Almost no one has gotten out of the program since it was launched, and patients have argued that makes it unconstitutional.

Frank had hoped to bring the lawsuit to trial before the end of the year, but experts evaluating the patients said they couldn't finish their work that quickly. Frank has asked those experts to make their report by mid-November.

The exact scope of the trial has yet to be determined.