IA- Expert witness's porn problem gets 2 Iowa offenders new trials

A couple of readers have asked why I missed the question of "double jeopardy" in this article? There is no question of double jeopardy, see comments below:

7-20-2008 Iowa:

Two Iowa sex offenders locked up for a possible lifetime of mental-health treatment will get new trials because the chief witness against them has admitted an addiction to child pornography.

Dr. Joseph Belanger, a North Dakota psychologist, has not been criminally charged, but he was forced to leave his hospital job after he notified bosses that federal authorities had seized his home computer.

Belanger, in a Nov. 27 letter to a North Dakota licensing board, blamed childhood sexual abuse and the fact that he has "been so frightened of the world and of women that I mostly used pornography ... as an outlet."

The letter sparked reviews of more than 145 cases Belanger was involved in. Judges in Lee and Scott counties cited Belanger's admission when they granted new trials for two men who were locked up in part based on Belanger's opinion that they are dangerous.

Belanger's revelation also is expected to factor in at least one appeal before the North Dakota Supreme Court.

Steve Addington, a public defender whose office has represented most of the accused sexual predators in Iowa over the past decade, confirmed that Belanger's admission and the ripple effect from it represents a first in Iowa.

Iowa court records show Belanger has been paid $30,763 since 2006 to evaluate six accused sexual predators. He testified against Paul Michael Blaise, 35, in a Lee County case, and Clay Morgan Spears, 50, in Scott County.

Both men, who already have served time for their crimes, have been granted new trials at which state lawyers will again try to prove they should be confined indefinitely for mandatory treatment.

-The "NEW" trial spoken of here is not, their criminal trials which would be barred by double jeopardy, instead the trials spoken of are the Civil Commitment trials, double jeopardy does not apply to such civil matters.

"The disturbing nature of Dr. Belanger's own deviate behavior ... is sufficiently large to undermine the court's confidence in the jury verdict that may be largely based on that testimony," Judge J. Hobart Darbyshire ruled last month in Spears' case. "Presumably ... the state will be able to secure a new evaluation of the respondent by an expert not burdened with the same problems Dr. Belanger has."

Belanger, 60, also made psychological assessments of four other convicted predators whose confinement cases have not yet gone to court. Assistant Iowa Attorney General Becky Goettsch said three of the four have been re-evaluated by new psychologists. The fourth man - Belanger concluded that involuntary treatment was not warranted - will be given "the benefit of the doubt, if you will," she said.

Belanger's work in Iowa was part of a 10-year-old law that allows authorities, with a judge's and jury's approval, to keep convicted offenders with a history of sexual violence confined for treatment regardless of their scheduled release from prison. The Sexually Violent Predator Act requires expert testimony to prove that an offender has a mental defect and is more likely than not to commit another crime if set free.

Court records show Blaise was a teenager when he was first arrested in 1991 for the sexual assault of a 9-year-old friend of his younger sister. In a 2005 incident, Blaise, armed with a BB gun, repeatedly questioned a woman in a park about anal sex and how she might respond to a demand for sex if a weapon was put to her head.

Blaise and Spears have been repeatedly disciplined in prison for masturbation and exposure of their genitals to female corrections officials.

"In legal terms, Paul Blaise is a pain in the ass," public defender Addington told jurors in Blaise's case last year. "He can be obnoxious. He can be inappropriate. But in America, we still haven't decided to commit people that are just pains in the ass."

Spears, who reads and writes at a second-grade level, was convicted in the sexual assault of a sales clerk in August 1985. In July 2006, an argument in a park led to assaults on a man and a woman that allegedly included sexual comments to the woman and attempts at forced oral sex.

A defense-paid psychologist, who did not testify at Spears' trial last September due to a scheduling problem, argued in a written report that the second incident was not sexually motivated and that Spears has no "mental disorder" that would benefit from sex-offender treatment.

Iowa prosecutors have appealed the decisions that granted both men new confinement trials. Both cases are in the pipeline to the Iowa Supreme Court.

The Iowa attorney general's office has targeted 143 alleged predators under the law since 1998. Fifty-six have seen their cases dismissed by judges or rejected by jurors. Another 13 either died while in treatment or benefited from court decisions that lifted them outside the law's reach.

Iowa officials say 74 predators now are confined indefinitely at Cherokee Mental Health Institute. Only one has completed treatment, and he later was returned after he failed a lie-detector test. Five now are in "transitional release," a two- to five-year process by which patients are eased back into the community.

Cases typically start with a review by a committee of prosecutors and corrections officials while the accused is still in prison. Records of any candidate deemed dangerous are handed over to a state-paid psychologist. If the expert agrees, state lawyers file court papers to keep the inmate behind bars until a formal trial on whether he or she is a predator.

Belanger, of Jamestown, N.D., could not be reached for comment. His former bosses did not return phone calls.

North Dakota's licensing board for psychologists reported that Belanger's professional credentials are active, although an investigation is pending. Belanger resigned from North Dakota State Hospital shortly after examiners received his November letter, in which Belanger stressed that he has worked with a Zen teacher and that "I believe recovery is possible."

"In retrospect, I can see that because of my own issues, I should have ... let somebody else do" the assessment of accused predators, Belanger wrote. "I found it appalling and frightening."

The two-page letter includes Belanger's admission that he downloaded illicit "pictures of girls who were about the same age I had been" when he was abused.

The photos apparently had been deleted by the time federal agents arrived at Belanger's home.

In the meantime, state prosecutors continue to defend Belanger's professional conduct. Prosecutors argue that the psychologist's porn problems should have no bearing on the appeals, since any new jury is likely to come to the same conclusion. Other experts have agreed that Spears and Blaise are dangerous and need to be confined, lawyers say.

"Obviously, we're not defending his pedophilia," Mary Tabor, appeals supervisor for the Iowa attorney general's office, said of Belanger. "But it's our position that the work appears to be solid." ..News Source.. by JEFF ECKHOFF