Judge threatens to jail parole officials over child killer Raul Meza's status

3-30-2011 Texas:

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel wants to know why convicted murdered has sex offender restrictions placed on him.

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel on Tuesday said state parole officials violated his court order by failing to explain why they placed sex offender restrictions on the parole of convicted child killer Raul Meza.

Yeakel gave the members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole a month to explain what evidence they relied on in placing the restrictions and threatened to jail the board members if they fail to comply.

The order comes as the parole board, which traditionally operates in secret and is rarely required to explain its decisions, runs into repeated judicial checks on its power — specifically its ability to label as sex offenders those who, like Meza, have not been convicted of a sex crime.

Yeakel ruled in 2009 that Meza, who has completed his prison sentence, had been denied his due process rights in being labeled as a sex offender, a status that Meza's lawyers argue has prevented him from getting a job and ultimately moving from the Travis County Jail and into the community.

Yeakel ruled that before saddling Meza with those restrictions, the board must give Meza due process — including the chance to rebut the allegations that he lacks sexual control — and a written explanation of the board's findings.

Yeakel's ruling was mostly upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year, meaning that others who were not convicted of a sex offense must have the same due process before being saddled with the restrictions, which can include mandatory counseling, electronic monitoring and registration as a sex offender.

Meza, 50, was convicted of murder in the 1982 killing of 8-year-old Kendra Page at the playground of a Southeast Austin elementary school. She had been strangled and sexually assaulted, according to police and an autopsy report.

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison and later received another four years for having a weapon in prison.

Under the state's mandatory supervision law, which has since been changed, Meza was transferred in 2002 to a minimum-security section of the county jail when his time served and good-behavior credit equaled the length of his sentence. He is to remain there until he gets a job and can support himself in the community.

Meza's lawyers with the Texas Civil Rights Project sued state prison and parole officials in 2005, arguing that his parole conditions were so tough, they essentially would lead to his incarceration in the Del Valle jail until his sentence expires in 2016. They said Meza is being treated differently from other parolees in his situation because of the high-profile nature of his crime.

Lawyers for parole officials said the restrictions were necessary to keep the community safe.

In his ruling after that trial, Yeakel found that before instituting sex offender restrictions, state officials must provide Meza advance notice of the allegations against him as well as the opportunity to attend a hearing on the issue, to present evidence and cross-examine witnesses and, finally, to provide "a written statement ... as to the evidence relied upon and the reasons for the decision."

In June, a three-member panel of the parole board held a hearing and that month unanimously decided that Meza "constitutes a threat to society by his lack of sexual control." The board listed the documents and witnesses that were presented at the hearing but did not specify which evidence was most persuasive.

Meza's lawyer Scott Medlock argued in a motion to Yeakel that the document was insufficient and that the parole board members should be held in contempt of court.

In court Tuesday, Medlock noted that Meza's therapist testified at his civil trial in 2008 that Meza does not lack sexual control.

Assistant Attorney General Bruce Garcia, who represented the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, told Yeakel that the three members had different reasons for finding against Meza and that the members had trouble combining those into a cogent finding.

Yeakel discounted that argument and gave the board members until April 29 to comply with his order.

"Contempt is still on the table if they don't get this done," Yeakel said. "One option ... open to me is to incarcerate the board until they purge themselves of the contempt." ..Source.. by Steven Kreytak AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF