the next case is people versus hall five million one hundred and seventy thousand one hundred and seventy nine good morning your honors to the court council i'm hannah strong and i represent william russell hall in this case this is a recovery petition and an appeal from the denial of his recovery petition alleging that he is no longer a sexually dangerous person i raise two points in this case and their basically pretty straight forward just as a little background on the stp program itself a person is committed to the department of corrections as a sexually dangerous person usually upon a second charge second or third or fourth charge on some sex related offense the state will choose rather than to proceed on a criminal charge that they will file a sexual dangerous persons petition instead court i think the reason is because then they can be committed for a much longer time because quite often there are fairly minor sex offenses that lead to this but in any event the new defendant is is there any minor sex offense you're right that was bad phrase lessor significance than there are far far worst things quit often the charges are relative realm yes so maybe a class three as opposed to a class x and then they would proceed on an stp petition instead the defendant is evaluated to see if he meets the criteria and then generally a trial was held to determine if he is in fact a sexually dangerous person in this case mr hall admitted the petition he did not take this to trial he acknowledged he had a problem he stipulated to findings of the evaluators and off he went in about two thousand and two two thousand and sixteen he files a petition alleging that he is no longer a sexually dangerous person we had a trial in two thousand and seventeen the burden of the state at that trial is to prove by clear and convincing evidence that mr hall is still sexually dangerous so what is a sexually dangerous a sexually dangerous person is someone who has a mental disorder either congenital or acquired that affects his ability to control themself that or in other words that mental disorder causes him to have criminal propensity then he had actually in fact acted on those in the past and then he is substantially probable to commit further acts of sexual misconduct those are the four elements so in this case we the filed petition per say to be released yes in two thousand and sixteen and that's typically not how it happens and then an evaluation is done and if that the state retained two experts the client should know heller young is a treatment provider she is not an expert dr klaus is the one you hear his name a lot in these cases he works for wexford he does these evaluations as a subcontractor and he's an amazingly brilliant man i mean he's remarkable to watch testify he absolutely has like he can remember anything that ever happened that he ever read about about it about then an inmate it's remarkable but doesn't mean his opinions are always right and this case he found that mr hall still suffered from pedophilic disorder which was what his original diagnosis was the history of mr hall was even as young as thirteen or fourteen he was fondling younger girls those acts do not qualify under as a an act to support a pedophilia diagnosis because you have to be more than sixteen to be diagnosed as having pedophilic disorder unfortunately mr hall's just kept it up he fondled people he did ultimately sexually penetrate a child he did do that he did have a conviction for child pornography was his original conviction in one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine he was put on probation for thirty months and then in two thousand no maybe it was ninety seven ninety nine petitionary revoke his file and they put him on some more probation for thirty months then he committed an act and that's what led to the initial petition here so he's been committed from two thousand and two or thereabouts until two thousand and sixteen when he filed this petition he's working the program which is a four phase program the first phase is orientation phase two is like the beginning of sex offender treatment phase three is where you're understanding and applying the principles and phase four is it's time for discharge at the time of trail mr hall was in phase two so it is the state's job to prove that he has pedophilia that he had this at the time dr klaus testifies that once you've got it you've always got it one thing you can do is learn to control it that's what sex offender treatment is all about the problem is at trial they presented absolutely no evidence that mr hall has any sexual urges fantasies or troubling thoughts regarding children that's one way that you can be diagnosed with pedophilia he hasn't committed any acts against children and to be fair there aren't any children at big money there are however publications happens all the time that these inmates are caught with child pornography or a sears catalog that they now say it's pornography because it happens to be at the stb program they still make a sears catalog no ma'am i find them to get in trouble with religious documents that have pictures of children that's pornography if you're at big money mr hall's never had any of that never not a single time in fourteen years has he had any sort of violations he's not gotten a ticket for inappropriate possessions he's not watching inappropriate tv shows and he has told dr klaus that he no longer has those fantasies about children so where's the basis to find that he still has pedophilia other than once you've got it you've always got it and this case everybody got distracted by the fact that mr hall has moved his love interests onto the treatment providers not a good choice not something that they recommend and they're against it totally understandable but the most important thing about a treatment provider is they're adults so that suggests he shifted his interest from pedophilia to adult women then the next most important thing about that is he's never done a single thing about it he fantasizes in his head he admits it because it's part of his homework and he's required to acknowledge everything that he is thinking sexually and he does he's acknowledged it and it's been dealt with he seems to have developed a crush on one treatment provider who was leaving that sent him into some sort of suicidal spiral and it was a terrible situation but the important thing to take away from that she's an adult so you're asking us to reverse the jury yeah yeah i'm asking you to reverse the jury verdict because the initial diagnosis that dr klaus testified to is not supported by any evidence in the record not a single thing other than that sixteen years ago he had pedophilia and was the jury instructed on that they would just instruct generally as to reasonable doubt what the elements were but i mean were they instructed as to pedophilia and what the elements of that are yes i believe that i'm sure they were instructed about it so they have the right to reject diagnosis as you're asking us to reject it yes technically they would've have that right and i don't have to remind all of you how he did his cases are and how difficult it is it's not a carpet it's not a shoplifting it's difficult for jurors it's difficult to get jurors and especially if he's now admitting that he likes older women as opposed to younger women yes he likes the lady he likes the adult ladies and interesting thing that dr klaus did say about when asked directly what is the appropriate place for his attraction in the setting in which he resides well there isn't one this treatment program is designed to get exactly the results that we've gotten with mr hall and that's my second point even though dr klaus testified he wants to see him acknowledge why he does what he does acknowledge his cycle his deviant thoughts manage his arousal develop interventions because nobody's ever going to stop the thoughts that go on in their heads they just have to learn to manage them and that is a successful treatment dr klaus says describes what he wanted to see and so did heather young described what she wanted to see and mr hall has done those things the fact that he has biggest problem he's got now is that he has a crush on his treatment provider is a sign that this program is working it's working he's redirected his interest to the most appropriate outlet that he has and most importantly he's not acted on it and that's what this is all about so not only is there no underlying diagnosis to support this conviction no evidence to support the diagnosis even though dr klaus believes that he has not made enough progress so that he has no longer substantially problems to commit these offenses in the future mr hall has actually shown all of those things that dr klaus wants to see in treatment even heather young admitted he had made amazing progress he understood first she would say he doesn't understand the concepts but when presented with the homework that show he did she acknowledged well yes he did seem to understand them it just doesn't apply them it was very much move the ball you know whenever he would accomplish one thing now all of a sudden he's short somewhere else rather than just taking it as gospel their word without looking at why they're reaching those conclusions it serves no purpose to even take this to a jury if that's what we're going to do we're asking for a rubber stamp if we don't look more deeply it's hard for jurors to do that it's not as hard for your honor's to separate the emotion from what the law says and that's what we're asking you to do here look at the law look at what the actual evidence was and we'd ask that you would find that they did not prove by clear and convincing evidence that he is substantially probable to commit certain acts in the future thank you do you have a rebuttal counselor morning your honors also it pleases the court assistant attorney general garson fisher for the people you honor these people do have to show by clear and convincing evidence that a sexually dangerous person remains a sexually dangerous person when they file a discharge petition pursuant to section nine but this part can only overturn the jury's determination of that the state meeting their burden if that determination against the manifest weight of the evidence here the uncontested testimony at the hearing is that defendant suffers from pedophilic disorder and the uncontested testimony at the hearing was that the understanding of that disorder at this time is that when someone has it it doesn't go away the deviant arousal and thoughts that are associated with pedophilia cannot be cured they don't go away with time that does not mean that the sexually dangerous person is condemned to a lifetime of treatment in a secure treatment facility because they can with a sex offender specific program learn to control those urges and this respondent has made some progress but the uncontested testimony at the hearing was also that this respondent has not made sufficient progress to avoid a substantial risk of reoffending should he have to operate outside of the secure detention facility big money he has begun to understand what his deviant thoughts are and he has shown according to the testimony of both the state section nine expert and his care provider at big money a very preliminary understanding of what his deviant and cycle is let me just interrupt you for a moment because i don't want you to think that you've been disrespected but we have had a judge leave and i don't know if you've been here before but everything is being recorded and is available to this the public even but justice moore will be listening after this is all over i understand your honor okay i just didn't want you to think about it it's not my first argument and then my first argument in the court justice okay we have to step off the bench all right sorry to interrupt no not at all your honor what these respondent has not done is been able to identify sufficient interventions to prevent a substantial probability of reoffending outside of the secure detention facility does he have to show that he won't reoffend as to children or does he have to show he won't reoffend generally actually whose burden is that yours the state's the state's burden to prove a substantial probability that he will reoffend if he will reoffend right a substantial probability yes your honor but is that as to children or is that as to sexual offenses generally well based on the language of the statute it would be sexual assault or sexual molestation of children because we know that he shifted his sights on to older older people women older women i hate to use the term older women because of course i am an older woman i know well we noticed that he has had very fit testimony of his care provider and the section nine expert inappropriate sexual attractions towards the adult women in big money that doesn't mean that he has shifted his inappropriate attraction and stopped declining reaching his conclusion that he suffers from pedophilia in addition to reviewing records also conducted a two hour interview with defendant those of who responded reaching his conclusion he did display additionally inappropriate attraction towards adults females at big money his care providers well i am wondering the relevance of that there is some relevance in that as dr young or to the his care provider henrietta young testified it demonstrates that he inappropriate believes that any time any female is nice to him that it indicates sexual attraction to him and she also testified that in group therapy he was able to recognize or identify those inappropriate thoughts but when challenged on their appropriateness wasn't willing to accept any of the pushback or feedback from group on his inappropriateness i will say i don't think that it is a major weight on the state side of the scale and there's as i said the section nine expert as well as his care providers undisputed testimony regarding each of the elements that the state has to prove which is supported by actuarial risk assessments which showed that respondent was three times more likely than the average sex offender to reoffend in an unsecure setting this is just one more small weight on the safe side of the scale and when confronted with all of these pieces of evidence i don't think the state could say that the jury's conclusion that the state had met his burden of showing by clearing evidence respond with a sexually dangerous person was against the manifest weight of all of these pieces of evidence unless your honor has any further questions people ask that this court affirm that judgment in the circuit court thank you your honors counsel just very very quick counsel pointed out that dr klaus met with mr hall for some time to interview him and doing his evaluation that's part and parcel of doing these evaluations yet nothing in that evaluation or that conversation made its way into evidence about mr hall's interest in children other than a single statement that he denies he has any the report was not admitted into evidence it should have been yes yes yes it was it was admitted so how could you say nothing was admitted oh i mean nothing about his interview with him directed towards mr hall's interest in children so dr klaus should have talked to him and determined that he had all of this based on something mr hall said none of that that sort of thing didn't happen and his testimony was just that he denied that he had any of that interest and i do think you kind of hit the nail on the head the goal of this program is not to turn out perfectly well adjusted socially skilled individuals that'd be great i know a lot of people that need that the goal of this program is to address what got him in there and that is he could not control himself when it came to young girls we have no reason to believe that he has that problem now and his interest is now in adult women and he's controlling that and the only time it is an issue is as part of his treatment that he has willfully participated in for all these years and he is required to i'm sorry the ability to control with adult women although it's a minor piece in group therapy he did push back on that i mean he wouldn't accept responsibility for that so he can really can't act out on it in big money well you'd be surprised it would be with women one of his problems before was he stalked girls and he almost seems as if he was like someone like developmentally arrested at a very young age this is how he comes across to me we don't have that here he wrote in his homework that he was struggling with a provider leaving and he couldn't go on without her well he's not sending her notes to that effect he's not hanging around outside of her office which is an option he wasn't doing any of those things that anybody presented any evidence on so he's controlling it to the extent and then he didn't have an option to hang around her office while he's in a secured facility she works in a secure facility and maintains an officer there yeah so she's still there oh yeah just not with him correct and she teaches this is an interesting point she teaches the relapse prevention group which is a highlevel group that's like the end of level three sort of thing why not put her on then i didn't why didn't he put her on to talk about his because she didn't like that either her opinion was it was inappropriate and we didn't need any more of that talk that's why but she could have helped him theoretically well her opinion is the same that he should not love her either that it's inappropriate for him to love her but that isn't as to pedophilia and that's what i was asking what do you think is the answer to that question did they have to prove by clear and convincing that he's no longer attracted to children or that he no longer is going to act out on sexual fantasies generally i believe that it should be it is intended to address his problem and his problem is children because you can be a sexually dangerous person and there not be a child involved you can be there if he got there on pedophilia so that's my question is let's suppose he's sexually inappropriate with adult women now does that still make him a sexually dangerous person i say not because it is purely by the nature of her relationship and being in this facility as his treatment provider that makes her inappropriate that's the only thing that makes her inappropriate even according to their witnesses if she was a person on the street that he had a crush on as long as he maintained his crush to himself and didn't stalk her and didn't touch her no harm no foul that's what he's supposed to be learning and he is he's doing that in the facility that he is in so if we would affirm this what is the next stage that would happen with your client they are allowed to file a petition every two years it generally this one moved really quickly it generally takes a couple of years to get to trial but in other words he would continue treatment and is there a third stage yes there is a third stage which of course he is only entitled to get into when these treatment providers say he can get in and that's a problem and that's where i was going with the relapse prevention group it's a high level group he was in it only like six to eight or nine people can be in that group there's one treatment provider and guess who it is the woman he can't be around because he has a crush on her so he's kicked out of that group and he can't ever move forward unless she stopped working there so here he is and that's an unfortunate side effect of funding and what's going on in the prisons and it's just a reality of the patients but it's a concern thank you your honor thank you nicole will take this under advisement and under a decision in due course we will take a ten minute break and be back out