Lawmakers try to reform sexually violent predator statute

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2-26-15 Washington:

SPOKANE, Wash. - In Washington, civil commitment keeps the state's most violent sexual predators confined to McNeil Island, a center on an island in the southern end of the Puget Sound. In order to be housed at McNeil Island, prosecutors have to prove that a convicted criminal is a violent sexual predator who is likely to reoffend. Predators serve their criminal sentence and then are civilly committed to McNeil Island.

However, the violent sexual offenders aren't confined forever. Sometimes they're released and are given the chance to live freely among their victims. Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson wants to change the law to make it more difficult for them to get out, and so do the victims of the attackers.

Crime Tracker Kalae Chock talked to a woman in North Idaho who was violently raped in the early 90s by a man named Monte Hoisington. Amy did not want to use her entire name or show her face because she's worried Hoisington will come after her again. He served time for rape in Idaho in the 70s, then raped Amy. He served time in the 90s for raping her and then was civilly committed to McNeil Island for 10 years. However, he was released a few years ago and now lives just 50 miles away from Amy in Coeur d'Alene.

Amputee's case held up as example in sex offender program

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2-26-15 Texas:

Whitmire questions whether inmate poses enough of threat for program

CONROE - A 63-year-old triple amputee was ordered into civil commitment Wednesday as one of the state's most dangerous sex predators, even as lawmakers moved to limit such severely impaired offenders from the program in the future.

Tommy Dale Sells was ordered by a Montgomery County state district judge to enter the controversial program this summer after serving his 15-year sentence for assaulting a 6-year-old granddaughter in 2001.

In less than an hour, a jury voted to put Sells, who has only one arm and uses a wheelchair, into the program because they believed he was likely to commit another sex offense. At trial, prosecutors told the jury Sells committed his latest crime in 2000 while in his current condition.

He lost his limbs after being hit by a train in the 1980s, attorneys said during a three-day trial. Sells also has several other health problems and a hearing impairment.

Texas judge in sex offender cases draws scrutiny

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1-5-2015 Texas:

CONROE, Texas | Sixteen times in the past four months, defense attorneys have petitioned to have him removed from hearing cases because of perceived bias. Eight times he has gotten the boot. Seven times in six years, appeals courts have found he abused his discretion in rulings.

But state District Judge Michael Seiler, who campaigned as "a prosecutor to judge the predators," remains the chief enforcer in Texas' troubled civil-commitment program, a treatment program designed to keep dangerous sex predators off the streets and from which no one has ever graduated.

Now the jurist who has publicly described the offenders who face him in court as "psychopaths" has become a flashpoint for criticism over whether his version of Texas justice has crossed the line.

Some attorneys and legislative leaders are suggesting that Seiler should be stripped of his role as sole arbiter of the sex-offender cases and are calling for sweeping reforms that could redefine the entire program.

"The statute needs to be changed so that all the cases do not happen in Montgomery County," said Barbara Corley, who retired last month from the State Counsel for Offenders, the state-funded office that represents convicts in court, where she once supervised civil-commitment hearings. "Everything shouldn't be concentrated in one judge."

Texas sex offenders not freed under state program

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12-14-2014 Texas:

HOUSTON None of the more than 300 convicted sex offenders ordered into Texas halfway houses under a little-known program since 1999 have ever successfully completed treatment and been freed, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Texas is among 20 states with civil commitment programs, which keeps some convicted sex offenders off the streets after their release from prison. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld civil commitments on grounds that the involuntary confinements are used to administer treatment, not punishment.

But a Houston Chronicle investigation published Sunday (http://bit.ly/1wweHea ) found that dozens of offenders have severe mental illnesses or developmental delays that leave them unable to succeed in the programs. Critics say offenders with mental disabilities are more vulnerable to criminal penalties because they can't comply with rules or court orders.

Nearly half of the 350 men ordered into the program since it was created by the Texas Legislature in 1999 have been sent back to prison or jail for violations of program rules, some as simple as being late to treatment, court records show.

"For years, offenders with a variety of disabilities have been assigned to this program with no programs to address their needs," said Marsha McLane, executive director of the state's Office of Violent Sex Offender Management. "Keeping a lot of these people in halfway houses, where they are now, is not a solution. This is a problem we have to fix."