CA- Court upholds sex offender mental health detentions (Civil Commitment), but orders hearings for some

6-14-2009 California:

A key 2006 Jessica's Law section allowing open-ended state mental hospital placement for sexually violent predators is constitutional, but defendants who fought re-commitment as the law took effect deserve a court hearing, appellate judges ruled.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal was on five consolidated cases from Riverside County. It was a certified opinion, meaning it has effect throughout the state.

The case, argued for the prosecution by the Riverside County District Attorney's office, can be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

The appellate justices upheld the constitutionality of the indeterminate commitment authorized in September 2006 by the state Senate and by voter approval in November of that year of Prop. 83, known as Jessica's Law.

"The fact that the amendments shift the burden to each defendant to show they are no longer suffering from a mental illness rendering them dangerous to the public does not invalidate the statutory scheme," wrote Presiding Justice Manuel A. Ramirez.

People convicted of rape or other sex crimes are candidates for evaluation as possible sexually violent predators during the final months of their prison term.

If tests suggest they meet the criteria, prosecutors can petition for commitment to a state mental hospital after the prison term ends. The inmate can challenge. Determination is made at a civil trial.

Since 2006, that commitment has been open-ended. Release is determined by the outcome of annual hospital staff evaluations. Before November 2006, prosecutors petitioned for recommitment every two years, taking the issue back to civil court.

The judicial panel said prosecutors could not apply the indeterminate rule to five men who had been previously committed and were the subject of petitions in 2006 to extend their mental hospital stays another two years.

Those petitions had been filed before the law changed.

Prosecutors made a motion in each case to convert the defendants' first sexually violent predator two-year commitments into indeterminate ones, and Superior Court judges agreed. The five men appealed.

The panel said the 2006 rules could be applied to current recommitment proceedings without being unconstitutionally retroactive.

"However, it is a different matter to convert a previously expired limited term of commitment to an indeterminate term without affording the individual a trial on the question of whether he or she currently meets the (sexually violent predator) criteria," Ramirez wrote.

Appellate justices faced a challenge considering a statute that is "not a model of legislative drafting, lacking specific provisions to deal with persons currently serving two-year extended commitments on the date the amendments went into effect," Ramirez wrote.

The justices said a finding sought by the five defendants, that the 2006 law did not apply to previous sexually violent predator findings, would have "an absurd result: The release of persons still suffering from mental disorders rendering them dangerous to the public."

The justices also said in their June 4 ruling that while they had reversed the indeterminate terms imposed on the five defendants, they agreed with prosecutors that the five should remain in custody while the matter is resolved.

"Unlawfulness of an individual's custodial status ... does not divest the trial court of jurisdiction to proceed on a petition for commitment or recommitment," Ramirez wrote. ..Source.. by RICHARD K. DE ATLEY, The Press-Enterprise