A guy who my girlfriend thought was a good friend of hers has admitted to having oral sex with her 12-year-old nephew. He was subsequently arrested but was released because in LawyerSpeake, he’s “incompetent to stand trial”. The man is currently out on the streets after, I believe, having undergone a psychiatric evaluation. My girlfriend, her brother, nephew (who is now 13) and I would like to see this threat to society institutionalized so he won’t bother any other children. Any suggestions?
BTW: on the off chance that this ends up in the column, I’d appreciate if my name is left off to protect our privacy.
Well, you might have a case in the civil courts. Just as in the OJ deal. This guy violated the young boys civil rights or something. Worth a phone call.
I would think the perp still has to register as a sex offender as he committed a sex offense, even though he supposedly is lacking mental capacity. If this or other minimal requiremnets were not met to the letter by the DA, then you all can threaten to hold them accountable legally and politically. The whole child safety issue thing is a real political hot button that no elected officials can afford to ignore.
Civil court against the perv, as was mentioned, is an option unless you’d be drawing from a dry well. However, there may be possibilities of going against the people or institutions that are supposed to be supervising this supposedly incompetent person’s case and affairs. I suppose you could theoretically argue that if the person is considered competent enough to be drifitng about unsupervised, then he is competent enough to stand accountable in court for his actions —in which case the original failure to prosecute is at fault.
But being a non-lawyer, I can’t say for sure if there are legal precedents in this or if it would float in court. I would bet that among the teeming millions thee are one or two sharp legal minds who would like to comment.
In Washington State, we have something called the Involuntary Treatment Act (ITA). Most of these things are pretty much universal, though (all quotes from ‘ITA 101: An introductory level process session for Mental Health Practitioners who are interested in learning more about the Involuntary Treatment Act’ by Linda Gunning etal, Kitsap Mental Health Services
Things needed to detain involuntarily:
"Danger to Self (DTS) a substantial risk that physical harm will be inflicted by an individual upon his or her own person, as evidenced by threats or attempts to commit suicide or inflict physical harm on one’s self
Danger to Others (DTO) a substantial risk that physical harm will be inflicted upon another, as evidenced by behavior which causes such harm or which places another person or persons in reasonable fear of sustaining such harm
Danger to Property (DTP) a substantial risk that physical harm will be inflicted upon the property of others, as evidenced by behavior which caused substantial loss or damage to the property of others
Gravely Disabled GD is in danger of serious physical harm from a failure to provide for his/her essential human needs of health or safety. GDCV manifests severe deterioration in routine functioning evidenced by repeated and escalating loss oof cognitive or volitional control over his or her actions and is not receiving such care as is essentioal for his oor her health or safety."
Questions a screener may ask (by category):
What are you requesting? a consultation, a crisis intervention, or an evaluation for involuntary treatment
Who are the persons involved and how can they be reached? your name; the name, address phone number, date of birth, current location and physical description ofthe persons you are concerned about; treatment professionals already involved, family and concerned/relevant others including witnesses
What is the current concern? Describe any DTS, DTO and include any known history; are there weapons involved;is it linked to drug/alcohol use or a medical condition; describe current symptoms/behaviors, including any recent changes in behaviors
Treatment history? who/where is there current psychiatric/medical treatment; any known history; current drug/alcohol involvement; are they refusing treatment; family history, if known
For what it’s worth, to find that a person is incompetent to stand trial, it is generally necessary to show that the accused lacks an understanding of both the charges against him and the functions and processes of the court, and is unable to assist in his own defense.
In Virginia, involuntary committal must be predicated on much the same factors that lawoot mentioned for Washington: a substantial danger to self or others.
I don’t quite understand how this person would be judged incompetent to stand trial, yet not a substantial risk to injure others, since there seems to be nothing stopping him from reoffending, and he apparently doesn’t understand even enough about the judicial system to know he’d be in trouble if he did it again.
If the psychiatric examination found that he’s improved, and that’s why he was released, he can certainly be tried now. Competency to stand trial is independent of competency or sanity when the crime was committed.
Call the local district attorney’s office, ask to speak to the prosecutor that handled the case, and tell him or her that you want to know what’s being done.
You left off some information. Is the guy 15 or 50 years old? Did he seem “incompetent” to you? Was violence involved?
Excuse me for being crude but…
If the guy is a 15 year old learning challenged person, and there was no violence, then I would understand the lack of willingness to prosecute.
First, it probably wasn’t a decision of the prosecutor to release this guy. If he is incompetent to stand trial, that is a decision made by a court, after testimony by medical personnel. You don’t say, but I assume he is either mentally ill or gravely disabled.
As to the involuntary treatment act, it is actually quite limited in practice. A law enforcement officer can take a person into protective custody for any of the reasons Lawoot listed. Then the person is evaluated by a county mental health professional. If they think he is in bad enough shape to be held, he goes into the hospital for 72 hours of observation. After that, there is a hearing to decide if he needs to be held longer. The hearings continue every so often as long as the person is held.
Practically, due to lack of psychiatric beds, only the very worst cases are held for any length of time. I’ve seen plenty of people I thought were clearly a danger to themselves or others get released immediately by the county MHP, because they weren’t “bad enough”.
And no, he can’t be made to register as a sex offender until he is convicted of a sex crime.
He’s in his 30s and has some sort of mental disability. I’m not privy to all the details. These people tend to be repeat offenders, the question is how many times does this one have to be caught before he’s put away somewhere?
He’s not competely unsupervised. He participates in a county mental health program for about 6 hours a day M-F. The rest of the time he’s pretty much on his own; I’m told he likes to hang around areas where he can give children way too much attention. Another problem is, my girlfriend is in the same mental health program, but she refuses to be there at the same time.
“Help put away a child molester?” With what, a shotgun?
You think I’m kidding, well yes but not much. Hubby used to prosecute, and one thing we learned- a sexual perp never, EVER, does it just once, and they will never stop. They can’t. You can only pray that you catch them with a better case next time, because they WILL re-offend- it’s only a matter of time.
Shitty but true. If there is a mental competance question, it muddies the waters for us lay people. Ask a lawyer to review the case, then explain it to you IN ENGLISH. Maybe that will help.