Is Florida holding sex offenders in legal limbo?

12-13-2010 Florida:

DeSOTO COUNTY - At a state sex-offender treatment center outside Arcadia, hundreds of inmates who completed their prison terms are held until they receive sufficient treatment to learn to control their criminal behavior.

But some convicted pedophiles and rapists who fight their commitment under the "Jimmy Ryce" law can find themselves stuck there indefinitely, in a legal no-man's-land.

The sex offenders do not receive treatment until a judge declares them a danger to society and orders an official commitment to the center. But the commitment process can take years, even though the law calls for that trial to happen within 30 days.

So there they sit, held as "pre-trial detainees," not getting counseling or mental health treatment they may need to get better and someday be set free.

Last week, the 2nd District Court of Appeal looked at one detainee's eight-year, pre-commitment stay at the Florida Civil Commitment Center and took what it called the "extraordinary step" of asking the Florida Supreme Court to step in immediately.

"The issues raised in this case involve potentially serious violations of constitutional rights," the ruling states.

The story of Ronald Morel's stay at the Florida Civil Commitment Center is complicated, but the dilemma it raises is clear. While no judge has ever said he should be committed, he has been detained there since 2002, receiving only limited treatment.

The appeal court's ruling indicates other detainees find themselves in a similar Catch-22, where fighting their detention can mean being incarcerated for years without a commitment order or treatment.

"If the department is not providing treatment during this delay, a pretrial detainee may not actually hold the keys to the cell in which he is civilly detained," the court of appeal ruling states.

Given the rather remote location of the Arcadia facility, the only one of its kind in Florida, another issue has arisen. The detainees at Arcadia are sometimes hundreds of miles from the county where their commitment case is being contested. That means the judges in DeSoto County who hear the detainee complaints are powerless to take action in those cases.

The lower court asked the Florida Supreme Court to look at the situation illustrated by Morel's case and provide guidance about how detainees can challenge delays in treatment and trial.

How it works in Florida

Florida's commitment center is one of dozens across the country that keep sex offenders involuntarily locked up beyond their prison sentences. The programs raise constitutional concern among courts and civil rights advocates who say they punish sex offenders twice for the same crime.

Lawmakers say it makes the community safer from a type of criminal that is likely to re-offend.

Florida spends $25 million a year to run the center created by the Jimmy Ryce Act of 1998, named for a 9-year-old boy who was kidnapped, raped, murdered and dismembered by a ranchhand in Miami-Dade County.

The law says that before a sex offender's prison term ends, state attorneys can file petitions asking judges to force civil commitment on inmates who were convicted of a violent sex crime.

If a judge finds there is probable cause that the inmate is a violent predator, the inmate is given an attorney and sent to the treatment center in Arcadia to await trial.

The trial is supposed to happen within 30 days, but often the defense attorneys waive that time limit as they search for experts to testify that their client does not need to be committed.

"Once the right to the 30-day trial is waived, however, these proceedings often seem to take many years," the court of appeal wrote. "The fact that the detainee is being held sometimes hundreds of miles from the trial forum does not facilitate timely resolution of these cases."

The Department of Children and Families contracts with a private company, GEO Group, to operate the facility. DCF officials say the center does not provide treatment to pre-trial detainees because treatment is expensive and can take a long time. If the detainee ends up not being committed to the facility, it could be a waste of taxpayer money, DCF spokesman Joe Follick said.

Also, successful treatment requires that offenders fully disclose all their crimes, so someone fighting a commitment would not want to do that, Follick said.

Meanwhile, the center does not have the power to review who is there and force the courts to act on the case.

In the case of Morel's eight-year stay, he has received more treatment than any other pre-trial detainee, according to court transcripts. The court of appeal got involved when Morel asked a DeSoto County judge to order the center to give him more treatment.

Morel went to prison in 1994 for a kidnapping and rape of a Boca Raton woman who asked him for a ride to work. When he was about to be released in 2002, prosecutors told a judge that psychologists found him to be a sexually violent predator whose mental condition makes him likely to re-offend.

Since then, a host of issues have combined to keep Morel there.

The clerk's office mistakenly closed his civil commitment case. Starting in 2005, three years passed without any filings or court activity on the case, with prosecutors saying they were busy on other cases. Morel's defense attorney has a history of misplaced files and complaints of neglect from other detainees, according to Florida Bar records.

Kristin Kanner, an assistant state attorney who handles Jimmy Ryce cases in Broward County, says the 2nd District Court of Appeals is wrong because it did not have all the information.

Morel could have pushed his case forward, but has declined an offer to self-commit because he would have to undergo a polygraph test as part of his treatment, and Kanner speculated that he does not want to discuss his acquittal on a charge of murder in a fatal fire.

"I look like I've been holding him there unconstitutionally, but that's not the case at all," Kanner said. "This is not a guy who's been pounding the table asking for a trial. It's not really an injustice; he doesn't want his trial."

Kanner says she is ready to try his case at a moment's notice. She recently set a status hearing for the case after the court of appeal started asking questions about Morel's case.

It is unclear whether the Florida Supreme Court will take up the issue. ..Source.. Todd Ruger