## Facts

- Robert Lile, a Kansas prisoner convicted of rape and related offenses, was nearing his scheduled release date.
- Kansas prison officials directed Lile to participate in the Sexual Abuse Treatment Program (SATP), a rehabilitative program for sex offenders.
- SATP participation required signing an “Admission of Responsibility” for the offenses of conviction and completing a sexual history questionnaire covering prior sexual conduct, including potentially uncharged criminal offenses.
- SATP disclosures were not confidential and could potentially be used in later criminal proceedings; Kansas did not provide use immunity.
- Lile refused to participate, asserting that the required disclosures would violate the Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination.
- Under Kansas policy, refusal triggered automatic consequences: loss of various privileges (including visitation, canteen and television access, earnings/work opportunities, and ability to send money to family) and transfer from a medium-security unit to a maximum-security unit with a more restrictive environment.
- Lile filed a § 1983 action seeking injunctive relief; lower federal courts ruled for Lile, finding unconstitutional compulsion.

## Issues

1. Whether a prison violates the Fifth Amendment by conditioning retention of prison privileges and housing level on participation in a treatment program requiring potentially incriminating admissions without immunity.
2. Whether the particular sanctions imposed for refusal to participate constitute “compulsion” within the meaning of the Self-Incrimination Clause in the prison setting.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed and remanded.
- A plurality concluded the SATP served legitimate penological objectives and that offering “minimal incentives” to participate did not amount to compelled self-incrimination.
- The plurality viewed the consequences as ordinary incidents of prison administration that did not extend the term of incarceration or impose a separate criminal penalty.
- Justice O’Connor concurred in the judgment on narrower grounds, agreeing that the particular consequences imposed on Lile did not cross the line into unconstitutional compulsion, while cautioning that more severe penalties could.
- Four Justices dissented, viewing the automatic loss of significant privileges and transfer to maximum security as coercive penalties effectively forcing self-incriminating disclosures.

## Legal Principles

- The Fifth Amendment bars compelled self-incrimination, not every adverse consequence that may influence a decision to speak.
- In prison, evaluating “compulsion” considers penological goals and the restrictive conditions inherent in incarceration.
- Loss of privileges and housing reclassification, without lengthening incarceration or adding criminal punishment, may be treated as permissible incentives rather than unconstitutional compulsion.
- The Constitution does not require a state to provide immunity for treatment-program disclosures absent compulsion created by the state’s threatened consequences.
- Sanctions can become unconstitutional if they are sufficiently severe to overbear free choice, particularly if they resemble additional criminal punishment or an extension of confinement.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Kansas did not violate the Fifth Amendment by imposing the specified loss of privileges and housing transfer on a prisoner who refused to participate in a sex-offender treatment program requiring admissions, because those consequences did not amount to unconstitutional compulsion.


McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24 (2002)