June 22, 2010

NY sex offender's lawyer opposes civil confinement

The real question here is, whether civil commitment is applicable at all, and not based on any ex post facto theory either? The article doesn't answer this threshold question, whether this man's priors are the result of rape -in the sense of jumping out of bushes and attacking women, -OR- whether he simply had consensual relations with women albeit illegal because of his HIV status? Which is the cause of him being in prison?
6-22-2010 New York:

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - A New York sex offender who infected at least 13 women with the AIDS virus continues his fight against the state's efforts to confine him beyond his prison term.

Nushawn Williams appeared Tuesday in state Supreme Court in Buffalo, where Daniel Grasso, his lawyer, argued it would be unfair to subject Williams to civil confinement as a dangerous sex offender. Grasso says the confinement statute wasn't passed until after Williams' rape sentence was over and he'd begun a consecutive reckless endangerment sentence.

The attorney general's office countered that as long as Williams was in prison when the state moved to civilly confine him, the statute applies.

Judge John Michalski (mih-HAHL'-ski) will rule on Grasso's motion to throw out the civil confinement efforts on July 19. ..Source.. WCAX.com

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