Original Article05/21/2012By Anne BlytheSex-crime convicts are held beyond their release dates after the government determines they could still be dangerousThe high walls surrounding the Federal Correctional Complex at Butner leave no doubt that
it’s a prison.
But for dozens of men held behind those walls, there is a growing question of whether they should be prisoners.
They have served their time and now are being imprisoned not for what they did, but what they might do. They are sex offenders being held – sometimes for years – under a recent federal law that allows the detention of those deemed so dangerous the government will not risk their release even when their sentence is complete.
Now, with the bulk of the detainees being held at Butner, federal courts in North Carolina are trying to sort out who should remain in and who should be released from this legal limbo.
Lawyers for the detainees say the extended captivity reflects
a law that applies a different and unfair standard to sex offenders. They also say many detainees do not meet the level of threat the 6-year-old law requires for indefinite detention.
“
The law doesn’t seem fair to me,” said Raleigh attorney
John Keating Wiles, who has represented several of the men. “
Traditionally, we don’t take away people’s liberty because they might commit a crime.”
The U.S. Department of Justice has sought to extend the confinement of at least 136 sex offenders since 2006, but almost half the attempts have been rejected by the courts or dropped by the government.
Of the men being held for hearings, some, indeed, have criminal histories and behavioral offenses inside prison that raise questions about their release into the community.
In some cases, though, it is unclear whether the problems are deviant sexual compulsions or broader mental impairments and illness compounded by drug and alcohol abuse.
By law, a federal judge must rule on whether a detainee is too dangerous to be released.
In the Eastern District of North Carolina, a visiting judge from Michigan has been brought in and several district judges have been assigned to help clear a backlog of cases that stacked up in the first four years after the law was passed.
Many cases were stalled by the lawsuit brought on behalf of
Comstock, one of the first to be detained as sexually dangerous after serving time for receiving child pornography.
In 2011, a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the government had that authority, a federal court ruled on the merits of classifying Comstock as sexually dangerous, and found he did not qualify for commitment
Eric J. Brignac, a federal public defender who has been involved with many of the cases in the state’s Eastern District, said the commitment procedure has highlighted a societal challenge.
“
It’s that tension between liberty and security,” Brignac said.
Expecting bad behavior
Though North Carolina has no such law, 20 states have procedures in place for committing sexually violent predators. Many sexual assault cases are tried in state courts and those offenders are not in the federal prison system.
Of those in the federal system, there are many whose crimes were committed on Native American reservations, which are federal property.
Each case essentially becomes a battle of the experts, with the government presenting doctors, psychologists and mental health analysts to bolster its claims. The defense brings in experts who offer their own assessments. It is up to a judge to sort through the different opinions and evidence.
[name withheld], 37, has been incarcerated since he was 21. On Jan. 3, Senior U.S. District Judge W. Earl Britt declared him “sexually dangerous” and ordered him committed.
[name withheld], who pleaded guilty in Montana federal court in 1996 to two counts of aggravated sexual assault by force, has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, an anti-social personality disorder, depression, a dependence on alcohol and marijuana and lingering effects of fetal alcohol syndrome.
He was arrested for raping a 66-year-old disabled man after entering his home through an unlocked door and later that day entering a woman’s home and sexually assaulting her by grabbing her crotch, according to court documents. The woman was able to grab a hammer and force him out of her home. Though
[name withheld] entered guilty pleas, he claims to have no recollection of the incidents.
That capped a series of sexual assaults that were tried in a tribal court. In 1993, he was involuntarily committed for alcohol treatment.
Prosecutors contend that
[name withheld] was cited for sexual misconduct during his federal incarceration. Court records show a marked decline in his misconduct after changes to his medication regimen in November 2009.
During a bench trial late last year, physicians for the government argued that
[name withheld] might have difficulty staying on prescribed medications and difficulty controlling his urges if he were outside a highly structured environment such as Butner.
“
Because [name withheld] has been unable to control his behavior even in the most supervised setting, the court concludes that he will have serious difficulty in refraining from sexually violent conduct if released,” Britt stated in his order.
A life of alcohol
[name withheld], 38, was born in Santa Fe, N.M., but spent his early childhood years at his father’s home in White River, Ariz., on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. His aunt raised him until his parents divorced when he was 5 years old. Then he and his siblings moved with his mother to the Jicarilla Apache Indian Reservation in northern New Mexico. But his mother had problems with alcohol abuse, according to court documents, and when he was 8, the courts placed him in a dormitory where he lived until he was 18.
After that, he moved back and forth between the two reservations of his earlier years, staying with his aunt in Arizona and his mother in New Mexico.
[name withheld] was first convicted in 1994 for an offense in July 1993 that involved a 17-year-old girl who had been drinking with him.
[name withheld] accepted responsibility and wrote in a statement at the time that he might have misunderstood the girl when she asked their male friend to leave them alone. “
I do not recall what else happened after that and until I awoke, alone, in the area where we had all been drinking.”
When later asked about the 1993 Arizona events, he was reported as saying the woman was lying, that he only talked with her, then went to his cousin’s house to drink and stayed there all night.
After his release from his four-year sentence in the New Mexico case,
[name withheld] was in and out of trouble with the law for not attending substance abuse counseling and failing to notify the right people of changes in his residence. He was arrested in 1998 and released to the custody of his girlfriend at the time.
It was that girlfriend, though, who was at the root of the sexual offense that landed him back in federal prison. In a 2001 conviction based on his time with her in 1998, she stated that he moved into her place without permission, and they lived together for four months.
During that time, according to court records, he beat her with his feet and fists and sexually abused her, becoming rougher and rougher after she told him to stop hurting her.
A written statement from him in his court file again makes reference to his alcohol abuse problems and his girlfriend’s reaction: “
I was able to stay sober sometimes, but other times, when I drank (she) did not want to be with me and that made me upset. On the date of this incident, I was drinking and she told me to leave. I got angry and forced her to have sex with me. She became pregnant as a result. For a while after that, we lived together and I helped her with the baby.”
But the families got involved, telling him the child was not his, that an old boyfriend was the father, a statement that angered him.
“
The worst part of this case is that because of my conduct, I will not have a relationship with my son,”
[name withheld] wrote. “
I will be in prison for a long time and he will grow up without a father.”
In October 2007, six months before his scheduled release,
[name withheld] was transferred to Butner. Thirteen days before his release date, the government began proceedings to classify Groshay as “
sexually dangerous.”
In a court document submitted in November, Raleigh attorney Wiles argued that
[name withheld] suffers from alcoholism, but the government had not proven dangerousness “
sufficient to justify commitment by clear and convincing evidence.”
[name withheld] awaits a ruling.
