County of San Diego v. Commission on State Mandates

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12-29-2016 California:

C.A. 4th
No. D068657
For Plaintiff: Jennifer B. Henning for California State Association of Counties and League of California Cities as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants.

For Defendant: Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Douglas J. Woods, Assistant Attorney General, Mark R. Beckington and Kim L. Nguyen, Deputy Attorneys General, for Defendants and Respondents California Department of Finance, California State Controller, and the State of California.

Prop 83 did not eliminate state mandate to reimburse local governments for costs associated with implementing Sexually Violent Predator Act (Huffman, J.) ..Continued..

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State owes counties millions in sex offender legal costs

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12-28-16 California:

California must reimburse its counties for the legal costs involved in determining whether sex offenders who have completed their prison terms should be sent to mental hospitals, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday.

A lawyer for local governments said the statewide cost would be about $25 million a year for the reimbursements, which the state stopped paying in July 2013.

“If the state wants to create a new program, they also need to think about how it gets funded” at the local level, said Jennifer Henning, who represented the California State Association of Counties and the League of California Cities in the case. “When you don’t do that, you risk (losing funding for) other services.”

The case involved California’s sexually violent predator law, a 1995 statute that allowed the state to keep sex offenders locked up after their prison sentences if they were found to be mentally ill and potentially dangerous.

Changes Underway For Kansas Sexual Predator Program

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12-27-16 Kansas:

Tim Keck, interim secretary of the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, told a legislative committee last week that the department is looking into expanding the sexual predator treatment program into the building currently housing the Larned Juvenile Corrections Facility.

More offenders are completing the sexually violent predator treatment program in Kansas, but state officials say they still need a bigger building to house those in treatment.

The program, based at Larned State Hospital, attempts to treat offenders who have completed their prison sentences but who were found to have a mental or personality disorder that placed them at a high risk of committing another violent sexual offense.

A Legislative Post Audit report found the program could run out of space as early as 2017. As of mid-December, the program had 261 patients. Its capacity, including reintegration facilities at Osawatomie State Hospital and Parsons State Hospital, is 264.

Tim Keck, interim secretary of the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, told a legislative committee last week that the department is looking into expanding the sexual predator treatment program into the building currently housing the Larned Juvenile Corrections Facility, which is scheduled to close early next year. Some renovations will be necessary, he said, but the department still needs to determine what they are and how much they will cost.

Lawmakers question state's sexual predator treatment program

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12-27-16 Kansas:

Population growth in the state’s sexual predator treatment program prompted questions among lawmakers last week over options to control the rise, including whether some could begin treatment while still in prison.

The idea would face significant headwinds, both legal and practical. Yet Attorney General Derek Schmidt said he is open to a conversation about the concept.

State officials have taken other steps to reform the program, where hundreds have gone for treatment but few have ever left. The treatment phases have been simplified, and an additional building for residents may be on the horizon.

Legislators met for two days last week for updates on Osawatomie and Larned state hospitals. Larned houses the sexual predator treatment program. Officials with the agency overseeing the program discussed with lawmakers options raised in a 2015 audit forslowing population growth.

Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services officials said staff continues to formulate a long-term strategic plan to combat population increases. One option to control growth is beginning treatment during incarceration, but KDADS is reticent to pursue it.

The program is meant to treat sexual predators previously convicted of crimes who have finished their sentences. The program involves involuntary commitment, offering a way for prosecutors to keep predators confined even after completing criminal penalties.

The process to commit an individual to the program resembles a criminal proceeding. The individual has the right to counsel and a trialis held with a judge and jury. The individual can also often be jailed during the commitment proceedings.

Suspected MN child snatcher who blamed God after arrest sent to sex treatment

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12-21-16 Minnesota:

ST. PAUL—A man who blamed God when he was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 7-year-old girl in a St Paul neighborhood will be indefinitely committed to the Minnesota Sex Offender Treatment Program.

The decision was made during a Wednesday civil commitment hearing for August James Ruthaferd of St. Paul in Ramsey County District Court.

Ruthaferd was formerly found incompetent to stand trial on the criminal charges filed against him following the alleged assault, which took place in early May.

The 48-year-old, who was not present at the Wednesday proceedings, recently signed a waiver that acknowledged his criminal behavior toward the young girl and waived his right to fight his civil commitment in a court trial, according to Kathleen Rauenhorst, Ruthaferd's court-appointed attorney.

"He told me he ... knew what he had done ... and wanted to know what options he had for treatment ... seeing he has a history of sexual misconduct," Rauenhorst said of Ruthaferd's decision to sign the waiver.

She added that Ruthaferd acknowledged he had "engaged in sexual misconduct," is unable to control his impulses and was "likely to do it again," without treatment at a state hospital.

The legal document granted Ramsey County District Judge George Stephenson clearance Wednesday to find Ruthaferd to be a sexually dangerous person with a sexual psychopathic personality and to have him committed under those terms.

AG prosecutor wins re-commitment of sexually violent predator

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Dec 20 Washington:

VANCOUVER — A Clark County jury late yesterday denied release to a sexually violent predator after a prosecutor from the Attorney General’s Sexually Violent Predator Unit (SVP) proved that he remains mentally ill and sexually dangerous.

Raymond Marshall, 45, was convicted of first-degree child molestation in Clark County in 1990. In February 2003, Marshall was found to be a sexually violent predator and was committed to the state’s Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island, where he has remained in total confinement since that time.

Washington’s SVP law allows the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) to petition for and defend the civil commitment of violent sex offenders who, because of a mental abnormality and/or personality disorder, are proven likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence if released.

SE sex offender committed for 15 months

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Dec 20 Minnesota:

NEW ULM — A 27-year-old Sleepy Eye man who refused polygraph tests in court-ordered sex offender treatment programs was committed to the Minnesota Commissioner of Corrections for 15 months last week.

Timothy I. Kotten, 28999 CR 27, Sleepy Eye, pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from a minor online in 2013 after chatting with a police officer he thought was an underage female. He was fined $2,080, placed on three years supervised probation and sentenced to 15 days in the Brown County Jail. His probation conditions included successful completion of an outpatient sex offender treatment program.

At a probation violation hearing that lasted nearly four hours Dec. 8, Kotten said he could not complete sex offender program expectations because they wanted a polygraph (lie detector test) completed which he called unconstitutional, a violation of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination.

Representing himself, Kotten testified several times that the sex offender treatment program he enrolled in and others he considered violated his personal privacy and offended him.

A decade after conviction, prosecutors seek to keep admitted pedophile in custody

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12-16-16 Massachusetts:

SALEM — "I should never be around children," Kevin Curlew once told Methuen police officers investigating a report that he had molested a 9-year-old boy.

"Those words, his words, are absolutely true," Essex Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Kirshenbaum said Wednesday during her opening statement in a civil trial to determine whether Curlew remains sexually dangerous, 10 years after his conviction on indecent assault and battery and other charges.

Kirshenbaum told jurors two independent experts who have recently evaluated the 54-year-old Curlew say he still poses a danger to both boys and girls if released from custody. She is asking the jury to find then that he is a sexually dangerous person.

That would allow a judge to commit Curlew to the Massachusetts Treatment Center at Bridgewater State Hospital.

Kirshenbaum described the case to jurors, telling them how Curlew volunteered to babysit children while their parents attended services at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Methuen in the early 2000s.

AG’s sex predator unit opposes release of Clark sex offender into community

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12-16-16 Washington:

VANCOUVER — The Attorney General’s Office has filed a petition in Clark County Superior Court seeking to civilly commit a Vancouver-area sex offender to prevent his release into the community.

Washington’s Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) law allows the Attorney General’s Office to petition for the civil commitment of violent sex offenders who, because of a mental abnormality and/or personality disorder, are proven likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence if released.

Dale Pittman, 48, was convicted of sexual assault in Montana in 1994, and indecent liberties in Clark County in 2007.

On Dec. 8, prior to his scheduled release for his Washington offenses, the Attorney General’s Office petitioned to have Pittman committed as a sexually violent predator. A judge found probable cause to detain Pittman pending a trial.

The civil commitment petition consists of allegations that have not yet been proven in a court of law. The State of Washington has the burden to prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.

The court has not yet set a trial date. The lead attorney is Assistant Attorney General Elise Abramson.

In 1990, Washington became the first state in the nation to pass a law permitting the involuntary civil commitment of sex offenders after they serve their criminal sentences. The Attorney General’s SVP Unit was established shortly thereafter.

Overhaul of state's civil commitment program

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12-16-16 Texas:

DALLAS - Efrain Rodriguez looks like your next-door neighbor.

But the one-time youth baseball coach is a child molester who abused players on his team and his cousins. The state says he's a dangerous sexual predator. They don't want him released.

Last week, a jury was being asked to decide if he should be civilly committed.

“These four convictions for sexually violent offenses are against four separate children ages four to nine,” said Erin Faseler, of the state’s special prosecution unit told the jury.

Rodriguez, 37, is among the first of what will likely be many civil commitment cases to be tried in Dallas County. Before state law makers overhauled the troubled civil commitment system in June 2015, all of the cases were tried in Montgomery. Now, offenders are being sent back to the county where they were convicted.

Supreme Court: Kansas Violated Rights of Man Jailed 4 Years

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12-10-16 Kansas:

The state violated the rights of a convicted sex offender by holding him in jail for years without a trial under the claim that he was a sexually violent predator subject to involuntary civil commitment, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The state's highest court agreed with a ruling by Sedgwick County District Judge Benjamin Burgess, who in 2014 ordered Todd Ellison released from jail. The Supreme Court found that the state violated Ellison's due process rights to a speedy trial after he remained jailed for 1,705 days awaiting trial.

Ellison's attorney, Michael Whalen, said his client was relieved. He said the decision also puts the Kansas attorney general's office on notice that such cases need to be a priority and move more quickly through the courts.

The attorney general's office released a statement Friday saying it has taken steps in recent years to speed up such cases and to better document delays caused be defense attorneys' requests.

Judge halts placement of sex offender

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12-8-16 Wisconsin:

FOND DU LAC - A Fond du Lac County judge has granted a temporary restraining order to halt the ordered placement Thursday of a violent sex offender in the town of Eldorado.

Judge Richard Nuss approved late Wednesday afternoon a petition filed by Fond du Lac County Sheriff Mick Fink, County Executive Allen Buechel and corporation counsel Meggin McNamara to halt the placement of Terry L. Olson, a violent sex offender, at N8578 Nitchske Road. The location would be a supervised residence located in a rural area of the county.

Washington County Judge Andrew Gonring, who ordered the placement of Olson outside of his county, chose not to hear a motion to grant a temporary restraining order that was requested by Eldorado town officials. A hearing is set for 2:15 p.m. Thursday in Gonring's courtroom to reconsider if Olson should be placed there at all.

Officials leave sex offenders' election ballots uncounted

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UPDATE May 2017: Paxton rules violent sex offenders can vote by mail

12-7-16 Texas:

Sex offenders at treatment center sue for alleged rights violations

AUSTIN - Like millions of Americans who wanted to have their say, more than 100 men inside a West Texas treatment center for sexually violent predators registered to vote in last month's presidential election.

Local election officials, however, refused to count their ballots, a decision that attorneys say likely violates federal and state laws.

The tossed-out votes now are the subject of a growing legal fight in the small town that once begged to get the treatment center for the jobs and the multimillion-dollar payroll that it brought, but now appears to be having second thoughts about the more than 200 convicted sex offenders that came with it.

"They didn't want us going out into their community, so they made us vote by mail, and now they're denying us the right to vote at all," said Clarence Brown, 54, one of the men in the Billy Clayton Center (See pics top of article HERE) whose ballots were rejected. "This place isn't supposed to be a prison, but this run-down, bigoted little town is trying to make it one so we can't exercise our constitutional right to vote. Even if they don't like us, what they have done is not legal."

JUDGE: Sex offender not subject to new portions of state statutes

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12-3-16 Wisconsin:

Chapter 980 sex offender Jonathan Miller is not subject to Act 156 based on being put on supervised release, but is mandated by almost duplicate regulations of the Department of Health Services, who oversees Miller’s release.

Miller and Robert Larson have been waiting to be placed on supervised release from the Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center May of 2014. They both are Chapter 980 sex offenders.

The Chapter 980 program was created in 1994 and allows the state to civilly commit offenders who are deemed to be sexually violent after they have served their prison sentences. The program was created as a way to continue to protect the public from violent sex offenders and provide treatment to offenders.

Miller appeared in Dodge County Circuit Court on Friday for a motion filed by his attorney Robert Peterson questioning the use of the Act 156 statute that was adopted on March 1 which imposes 1,500 foot residency restrictions.

Sex Offender Stunned To See How He Is Treated In Prison

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11-11-16 Illinois:

In a federal lawsuit filed in Springfield, a man claims he was forced to endure repeated assaults and unwanted sexual advances inside the Rushville Treatment and Detention Facility.

The facility, which is operated by the state Department of Human Services, houses about 500 people designated as dangerous sex offenders under the Illinois Sexually Violent Persons Act.

People who fit under this category are those determined by the court to have a mental disorder that makes it probable they will engage in sexually violent acts.

Court documents state that Michael Mulder, who filed the federal lawsuit, was committed to the Rushville facility for aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving a 10-year-old victim and aggravated unlawful restraint in Clinton County.

In the court complaint, Mulder says that he has been assaulted twice by different roommates. Furthermore, he claims that officials ignored his repeated concerns about sexual abuse and harassment, and even threatened him for complaining about attacks by others also being held in the facility.

“Defendants…have deliberately engaged in the acts of requiring [me] to have and maintain a roommate that is known to them to be a sexually violent person and sexually violent while in their custody,” Mulder says in the lawsuit.