PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-7607

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Petitioner - Appellant,

v.

WALTER WOODEN,

Respondent - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at 

Raleigh. Terrence W. Boyle, District Judge. (5:10-hc-02151-BO)

Argued: September 15, 2017 Decided: April 10, 2018

Before MOTZ, TRAXLER, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Traxler wrote the opinion, in which Judge Motz 

and Judge Keenan joined.

ARGUED: Benjamin M. Shultz, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 

Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Debra Carroll Graves, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL 

PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Benjamin C. 

Mizer, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Mark B. Stern, Civil Division, 

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C.; John Stuart Bruce, 

United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, 

North Carolina, for Appellant. Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, Eric J. 

Brignac, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC 

DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.
2
3

TRAXLER, Circuit Judge:

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (the “Act”), Pub. L. 

No. 109–248, 120 Stat. 587 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 18 and 42 

U.S.C.), authorizes the government to civilly commit “sexually dangerous” federal 

inmates after the expiration of their sentences. 18 U.S.C. § 4248(a). A defendant is a 

“sexually dangerous person” if he has a prior act or attempted act of child molestation or 

sexually violent conduct and is “sexually dangerous to others.” Id. § 4247(a)(5). A 

defendant is sexually dangerous to others if he “suffers from a serious mental illness, 

abnormality, or disorder as a result of which he would have serious difficulty in 

refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation if released.” Id. § 

4247(a)(6).

In 2010, Walter Wooden was serving a sentence at a federal correctional facility 

when the government began proceedings against him under the Act; he was civilly 

committed as a sexually violent predator in 2014. In 2016, Wooden requested a hearing 

to address whether he should be released. See 18 U.S.C. § 4247(h). After a hearing, the 

district court concluded that Wooden no longer qualified as a sexually dangerous person 

and ordered Wooden’s release. The government appeals. As we will explain, the highly 

deferential standard of review applicable to this case compels us to affirm.

I.

A.

Wooden, who was born in 1956, has a limited intellectual capacity. See United 

States v. Wooden, 693 F.3d 440, 443 (4th Cir. 2012) (“Wooden I”). In 1972, when 
4

Wooden was 16, he was twice adjudicated delinquent for committing rectal sodomy on a 

minor. The next year, he was again was adjudicated delinquent after sexually molesting a 

minor. In 1974, Wooden was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty to taking indecent 

liberties with a four-year-old child. Wooden received a 10-year sentence but was paroled 

into the community in 1980. In 1984, Wooden was convicted and sentenced to 25 years’ 

imprisonment after separate incidents involving an eight-year-old boy and a twelve-yearold boy. Wooden was paroled in 2000, returned to prison in 2001 after violating the 

terms of parole, and paroled again in 2002.

After being paroled in 2002, Wooden began sex-offender treatment with Dr. 

Ronald Weiner. By 2005, Weiner believed Wooden was responding well enough to 

treatment that he was thinking about discharging him. Before that happened, Wooden 

resisted taking a routine polygraph, and he ultimately told Dr. Weiner that he had had 

sexual contact in the basement laundry room of his building with a seven-year-old boy he 

had been alone with on previous occasions. Wooden later changed his story and claimed 

that he only dreamed about touching the boy. When interviewed by the police, the boy 

denied that Wooden had touched him, but he did say that “he was afraid to be around 

Wooden, even though Wooden sometimes gave him money.” Wooden I, 693 F.3d at 

444-45. 

During a June 2005 polygraph, Wooden gave “non-deceptive” answers that 

admitted to having “deviant sexual thoughts” about children in the past year, being 

sexually aroused in the presence of children in the past year, engaging in sexual activity 

with a child in the past year, and attempting to engage in sexual activity with a different 
5

child. See id. at 444. The District of Columbia parole board determined that Wooden’s 

story about the boy in the laundry room was true and revoked Wooden’s parole. Wooden 

served the revocation sentence at the Federal Correctional Institute in Butner, North 

Carolina.

B.

In 2010, shortly before Wooden was scheduled to be released from Butner, the

government filed a petition seeking to civilly commit him under the Act. At the hearing

on the government’s petition, Drs. Hy Malinek and Heather Ross testified as expert 

witnesses for the government. Both experts agreed that Wooden suffered from 

pedophilia, which qualifies as a “serious mental illness” under the Act; that his illness 

would make it difficult for Wooden to refrain from reoffending if released; and that 

commitment under the Act was therefore warranted. Wooden presented the expert 

testimony of Dr. Terence Campbell. Campbell testified that Wooden no longer qualified 

as a pedophile and that he did not have a volitional impairment, such that commitment 

was not appropriate.

The district court denied the commitment petition, largely adopting Campbell’s 

analysis. The court agreed that Wooden had suffered from pedophilia in the past, but 

concluded that the government had not proven that Wooden still suffered from pedophilia 

at the time of the hearing. As to the Act’s volitional-impairment requirement, the district 

court held that it was not sufficient for the government to prove that the mental illness 

caused the defendant to have “serious difficulty in refraining from sexually violent 

conduct or child molestation if released,” as required by the Act. 18 U.S.C. § 4247(a)(6). 
6

Instead, the court concluded that the Constitution required the government to also prove 

that the defendant was dangerous, which the court believed required evidence showing a 

five-year recidivism rate of at least 50%. Because the government’s evidence fell short 

of that threshold, the district court dismissed the government’s petition. See Wooden I, 

693 F.3d at 450.

The government appealed to this court. Although we recognized that review of 

the district court’s factual conclusions was governed by the highly deferential clearlyerroneous standard, we found the district court’s analysis wanting in several respects. 

Most significantly, we explained that the district court (1) failed to account for evidence 

showing Wooden’s then-current sexual interest in children when concluding that Wooden 

was not a pedophile, see id. at 452; (2) failed to address certain internal inconsistencies 

and deficiencies in Dr. Campbell’s report and testimony, see id. at 454-55; (3) erred by

equating volitional impairment with impulsiveness and then ignoring strong evidence of 

impulsiveness, see id. at 457-58; (4) failed to consider other evidence relevant to the 

question of volitional impairment, see id. at 459; and (5) erred by requiring proof of a 

greater-than-50% risk that Wooden would re-offend within five years, see id. at 461. 

We therefore reversed the district court’s decision and remanded for further proceedings.

On remand, the district court concluded that our opinion in Wooden I required it to 

find that Wooden was a sexually violent predator, and the court therefore ordered 

Wooden committed. We reversed and remanded again, explaining that “our mandate 

contemplated the possibility that a proper distillation of all the evidence, including a full 

accounting of all contradictory and conflicting evidence, could perhaps support the 
7

district court’s original findings.” United States v. Wooden, 546 F. Appx. 229, 231 (4th 

Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (unpublished). After the second remand, the district court again

certified Wooden as sexually dangerous. Limiting the record to the evidence developed 

for the original 2011 hearing, the court concluded that Wooden suffered from pedophilia 

at the time of the hearing and that he would have serious difficulty refraining from 

reoffending if released. 

C.

In 2014, counsel for Wooden hired Dr. Joseph Plaud to evaluate Wooden’s thencurrent condition. After his first interview with Wooden, Plaud became concerned about 

Wooden’s neurocognitive development, and he strongly recommended that Wooden 

undergo medical and neuropsychological evaluations. Counsel then brought in Dr. 

Frederick Winsmann to evaluate Wooden. Dr. Winsmann, a psychologist, is a leading 

expert on the issue of volitional control in sex offenders. He is the founder of the Boston 

Symposium on Psychology and the Law, “an annual event . . . [that] bring[s] together 

experts in the field of psychology and psychiatry, as well as the law . . . . to discuss 

difficult topics and advance the field.” J.A. 462.

Winsmann interviewed Wooden multiple times and conducted a battery of tests 

measuring Wooden’s memory, intellectual ability, and adaptive functioning. Winsmann 

also interviewed some of Wooden’s family members. Winsmann concluded that Wooden 

suffers from Intellectual Development Disorder (“IDD”), a condition previously referred 

to by mental-health professionals as mental retardation. Although evidence of Wooden’s 

intellectual limitations was part of the original hearing record, see Wooden, 693 F.3d at 
8

443, his intellectual capacity was not then a focus of the experts’ reports. In Winsmann’s 

view, the earlier failure to diagnose IDD or recognize its significance led to an incorrect 

diagnosis of pedophilia.

(1)

On March 22, 2016, Wooden filed a motion requesting a hearing to determine 

whether he should be discharged. See 18 U.S.C. § 4247(h).

At the hearing, Dr. Winsmann testified that Wooden met the diagnostic criteria for 

IDD. According to Winsmann, Wooden has a full-scale IQ of 75 but presents and 

communicates at an even lower level. Winsmann testified that Wooden’s “adaptive 

functioning is very much impaired”; that his communication skills are “very low”; and 

that his cognitive functioning compares to that of a 3rd- to 5th-grader. J.A. 470, 471. 

When viewing Wooden’s past actions and statements through the IDD lens, 

Winsmann testified that he saw no evidence of pedophilia. According to Winsmann, 

Wooden’s “past offenses in the ʼ70s and ʼ80s were more opportunistic and borne out of 

his intellectual deficit rather than this deviant preferential urge or arousal to children.” 

J.A. 483. Winsmann explained,

I don’t see the focused interest on children. I see a global interest in many 

different ages in his sexual interest. And I also see these real adaptive 

difficulties that drive someone like this to really feel more comfortable 

around persons who are so much younger than him chronologically, but he 

is . . . really close to their age in terms of emotional and cognitive 

development.

So when you look at these factors and the way he’s functioned in the 

world, it’s more compelling to me, it’s more compelling. I considered 

Pedophilic Disorder. I would not be doing my job if I didn’t. But [IDD is 

the] more compelling explanation for his behavior.
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J.A. 482. 

In Dr. Winsmann’s view, the scope of Wooden’s intellectual and communicative 

deficits had long been overlooked, which ultimately led to an incorrect diagnosis. For 

example, Wooden’s earlier statements that his very young victims came to him asking for 

sex were treated as “cognitive distortions or ‘thinking errors’ common to sex offenders,” 

Wooden I, 693 F.3d at 452–53, when Winsmann believed they should have instead been 

understood as “the musings of someone, all due respect to Mr. Wooden, mentally 

retarded.” J.A. 507.

Winsmann also testified that, at the time of the hearing, Wooden did not have a 

serious difficulty controlling his behavior. Winsmann explained that people with IDD do 

develop, but they do so very slowly. And in his view, Wooden’s time in prison had given 

him the ability to “weigh consequences, make choices, and think things through,” and 

that Wooden therefore would not have “serious difficulty in controlling [his] behavior.” 

J.A. 484. As proof of Wooden’s growth, Winsmann pointed to the “clear downward 

trend” in the frequency of Wooden’s disciplinary infractions. J.A. 487. According to 

Winsmann, the decreasing frequency showed that Wooden was increasingly able to 

restrain himself and control his anger and impulsivity.

Dr. Plaud testified that while he diagnosed Wooden with pedophilic disorder based 

on historical data, “there’s really no evidence . . . in the last ten years that Mr. Wooden, 

as he sits at Butner, has recurrent or intense sexually arousing fantasies, urges, or 

behavior involving sexual activity with prepubescent males. There’s nothing.” J.A. 552-

53. Plaud testified that he agreed with Winsmann that Wooden had IDD. See J.A. 553 
10

(“I would fully and completely agree that Mr. Wooden has what we used to call mental 

retardation, now IDD.”). Plaud also agreed with Winsmann that Wooden now had 

sufficient volitional control:

[W]e have more understanding now historically about why he may have 

done what he did when he was younger. Because if you look at . . . when 

he was active, engaged in pedophilic behavior, he, himself, was a teenager 

and in his 20s. I think he was delayed. 

You know, the question earlier was well, would a four year-old do 

something to another four year-old? Well, no, because both of them don’t 

really have much hormones going on there. But if you’re 14 or 15 and you 

have physically the hormone development, the development of secondary 

sexual characteristics but your mind is 10 years behind, that’s a problem. 

And so you might see some sexualized behavior given the physiology 

going on. But the brain is delayed. It can’t process it like he was a 14 yearold.

That’s what you got in my judgment. That’s . . . one of the 

significances of this disorder that has gone up until this hearing now 

basically unrecognized for Mr. Wooden.

So you fast forward. He’s not 14 or 24 or 34, he’s 60 years old. 

Now, it takes a long time to catch up. Now, is he functioning typically, 

cognitively like a 60 year-old? No. But he’s not functioning like a four 

year-old either. I think he has that fundamental understanding now of the 

wrongfulness of engaging in that behavior as a 60 year-old.

J.A. 559-60.

The government’s experts, Dr. Malinek and Dr. Ross, both testified that Wooden 

continued to qualify for commitment under the Act. As to the IDD diagnosis, Malinek

acknowledged that Wooden had adaptive and intellectual deficits, but he questioned 

whether IDD “is really fully present here.” J.A. 605. In any event, Malinek rejected 

Winsmann’s argument that “IDD is now the explanation for it all.” J.A. 606. Malinek 

explained that 
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IDD has played a role in his history. I’m not saying it did not have 

an impact. I view it as a facilitator or as a disinhibitor, as a factor involving 

poor judgment.

Individuals with IDD, if you look at the examples in the book or in 

the literature, are not prone to pedophilic conduct. There’s nothing in IDD 

in the DSM or the research that talks about proneness to aggressive, 

persistent interest in prepubescent [children].

You do have people with IDD who have obviously sexual urges as 

they grow and they do not know how to seek partners, they have poor 

judgment. They may have boundary-violating behavior. But [Wooden’s 

conduct] is not simply boundary-violating behavior. What he engages in is 

aggressive, persistent, predatory sexual conduct with prepubescent children.

J.A. 625-26; see also J.A. 607 (“[T]here’s an impact of his cognitive difficulty here. This 

is a contributor. I see it as a risk factor. But there’s nothing in . . . mild mental 

retardation or intellectual disability that has a link to sexual conduct of that kind that we 

have seen here.”). Malinek also questioned whether Wooden was a “reliable informant” 

and whether his denial of sexual interest in children should be believed. J.A. 611. In 

Malinek’s view, IDD simply could not explain away the conduct that Wooden had 

engaged in:

[T]he conduct and the planning and the isolating of the children . . . shows 

that is totally not IDD. That is forward, aggressive conduct directly that’s

coming from sexual arousal. He’s not befriending them for friendship . . .

as you would anticipate if he had just IDD, playing with them. There’s no 

show me yours and I’ll show you mine -- if he was, indeed, at this level.

There is movement to anal sex right away. And that is a paraphilic, 

persistent paraphilic chain here over time.

J.A. 627. In response to a question from the government, Malinek described Wooden as 

among the most dangerous sex offenders that I have evaluated. There is an 

unbroken chain of recidivism here. There’s the undisputed evidence of 

pedophilia. There’s acting out while in treatment. There is predatory 

behavior, seeking stranger children for the purpose of sodomy. There’s 
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adult and child offenses. There’s no amenability, no interest in treatment. 

There’s definitely evidence of defective controls and easily aroused anger. 

So I believe he remains highly dangerous.

J.A. 633. The district court strongly disagreed with that assessment, interjecting that 

Malinek’s description of Wooden “just thoroughly impeached all of [Malinek’s]

testimony.” J.A. 633. The court’s statement echoed an earlier critique of Malinek’s 

testimony. Responding to Malinek’s testimony that narcissism was a “prominent” aspect 

of Wooden’s personality, J.A. 598, the district court stated: 

[Y]ou’ve been telling me he’s a narcissist and entitled and filled with 

claims and demands for entitlement. I see a person who is mentally 

retarded and feebleminded and not really presenting with any of those sorts 

of conditions.

You know, your perception of the case is just so out of line with 

what I see, that I’m -- honestly, I don’t have anything to hide. I’m honest 

in telling you that.

J.A. 603.

Wooden testified in support of his discharge petition and expressed regret for his 

actions. He testified that he “took advantage of them little kids,” J.A. 425, and he 

acknowledged that it was not the right thing to do. He testified that he is attracted to 

women and is no longer attracted to young boys. When pressed by the government, 

Wooden stated that the last time he was attracted to boys was sometime between 2002 

and 2004. See J.A. 446. While Wooden had maintained in the 2011 commitment 

proceedings that his victims came to him for sex, he explained in this hearing that the 

children came to him asking for money, not sex. Under persistent questioning by the 

government, Wooden refused to blame his victims and consistently placed blame on 
13

himself. See J.A. 441 (“No, it’s my fault for, my fault for taking advantage of them. It 

ain’t their fault. It’s my fault for taking advantage of them.”).

(2)

The district court ruled in favor of Wooden. Assigning the burden of proof to 

Wooden, the district court concluded that Wooden no longer satisfied the statutory 

requirements for commitment.

As to whether Wooden was then “suffer[ing] from a serious mental illness, 

abnormality, or disorder,” 18 U.S.C. § 4247(a)(6), the district court specifically credited 

the testimony of Dr. Winsmann and concluded that pedophilic disorder was not a proper 

diagnosis for Wooden. The court explained:

[T]he Court highly credits the testimony and conclusions of Dr. Winsmann 

and Dr. Plaud that Mr. Wooden has suffered from Intellectual Development 

Disorder throughout the duration of his life and that IDD is a better 

explanation for Mr. Wooden’s past criminal behavior than Pedophilic 

Disorder.

The Court heeds the testimony of Dr. Malinek that individuals with 

IDD usually do not commit sexual crimes but are instead often the victims 

of sexual assault. The Court also considered Dr. Malinek’s testimony that 

persons can, and often do, suffer from multiple disorders and that, in his 

opinion, IDD cannot be the sole explanation for all of Mr. Wooden’s past 

behavior because there is nothing in IDD that compels deviant sexual 

attraction to children.

 

While it is undisputed that Mr. Wooden has molested children and 

exhibited strong sexual interests toward prepubescent, male children, there 

is also evidence demonstrating that Mr. Wooden has exhibited sexual 

attraction toward adult women and has had adult, age-appropriate partners. 

The Court finds compelling both Dr. Winsmann and Dr. Plaud’s 

explanation for Mr. Wooden’s past behavior as being a result of serious 

intellectual delay such that Mr. Wooden experienced the physical and 

hormonal development of a teenager and young adult but the cognitive 

development and maturity of a much younger person, as much as 10 or 15 
14

years behind, and was therefore unable to understand or control his sexual 

urges. . . . Whereas Doctors Ross and Malinek ascribe Mr. Wooden’s past 

sexual misconduct to an uncontrollable sexual attraction to prepubescent 

male children, Doctors Plaud and Winsmann conclude that the record 

evidence is indicative of a global sexual interest, which when coupled with 

adaptive difficulties and an impaired emotional and cognitive development, 

led to deviations from acceptable conduct and an inability to weigh 

consequences with the maturity of a developed person of his physical age. 

Essentially, due to his IDD or mental handicap, Mr. Wooden lacked the 

cognitive functioning and emotional maturity to form healthy relationships, 

control or understand his sexual urges, or discriminate between partners 

his own age and children with whom he more easily bonded emotionally.

Mr. Wooden himself has exhibited these characteristics as the Court has 

observed him over the course of five years. The Court finds that this 

reasoning is compelling and that the record evidence supports this 

conclusion.

J.A. 657-58 (emphasis added). The district court also noted that the DSM-V1 requires 

sexual arousal for a six-month period for a diagnosis of a paraphilia such as pedophilic 

disorder, but that Winsmann and Plaud both testified that Wooden was not currently 

exhibiting pedophilic urges. The court stated that “Wooden [has] not exhibited any 

pedophilic urges since 2005, [and] he also testified credibly that he no longer experiences 

those impulses.” J.A. 659. The district court therefore concluded that “the record in this 

case no longer contains substantial evidence that Wooden is having intense and recurrent 

sexually arousing fantasies and urges about prepubescent children.” Id. (internal 

quotation marks and alteration omitted). After rejecting the pedophilia diagnosis, the 

district court concluded that IDD does not qualify as a “serious mental illness, 

 1 The DSM-V is the fifth edition of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of 

Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association. See United States 

v. Maclaren, 866 F.3d 212, 215 (4th Cir. 2017).
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abnormality, or disorder” under the Act2 and that Wooden had no other condition that 

qualified. Accordingly, the district court concluded that Wooden did not have a “serious 

mental illness, abnormality, or disorder,” as required to qualify him as a sexually violent 

predator under the Act. 18 U.S.C. § 4247(a)(6).

 The court then moved on to the question of Wooden’s volitional control. The 

court credited the testimony of Drs. Winsmann and Plaud that Wooden

has progressed cognitively and emotionally to the point that he no longer 

faces a serious difficulty refraining from child molestation if released. In 

the opinions of Doctors Plaud and Winsmann, Mr. Wooden is no longer 

expressing arousal to children, has developed an ability to weigh choices 

and understand consequences, and has shown reduced impulsivity. These, 

especially when weighed alongside several protective factors including his 

increased age, infirmity, and a release plan, show that Mr. Wooden will be 

able to control his behavior and reduces the risk that he will reoffend.

J.A. 664.

The court specifically found the views of Dr. Malinek and Dr. Ross “unreliable” 

on the question of Wooden’s “present condition” and explained that the doctors “relied 

too heavily upon historical criminal behavior to justify their conclusions that he is 

currently sexually dangerous.” J.A. 664-65. The district court rejected Malinek’s 

assertion that Wooden was one of the most dangerous sex offenders he had evaluated, 

stating that Malinek’s “inflated conclusion flatly contradicts the picture of Mr. Wooden 

as the Court finds him today: 60 years old, physically and mentally handicapped, and 

expressing credible regret over his past actions.” J.A. 665.

 2 The government does not challenge this ruling on appeal.
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 The district court noted Wooden’s improved behavior in prison, as shown by 

“sharply declining rates of insubordinate behavior and disciplinary citations,” id., and by 

the fact that Wooden had never been cited for possessing child pornography or other 

sexual material while confined at Butner. In the view of the district court, “[t]his is 

evidence of an increasing amount of self-control and weighs toward a finding that Mr. 

Wooden will not face a serious difficulty refraining from sexual misconduct.” J.A. 665. 

Again concluding that the 2005 laundry-room incident did not occur,3 the court observed 

that Wooden’s last criminal offense occurred in 1983, and that there was no evidence that 

Wooden had “experienced any . . . intense sexual urges toward male children” in many 

years. J.A. 667.

The district court recognized that the actuarial models4 placed Wooden in the 

“moderate-high risk category for sexual re-offense.” J.A. 668. The court gave less 

weight to those assessments, however, because they were “based almost entirely on 

historical factors which can never change and do not account for any development in 

[Wooden’s] mental health.” Id. Although Wooden had refused sex-offender treatment 

while at Butner, the district court believed that his refusal was more a function of his 

intellectual deficits and misunderstandings about the nature of the program than a denial 

 3 The district court made the same factual determination when considering 

the government’s initial commitment petition. See Wooden I, 693 F.3d at 449.

4 “[A]ctuarial models consider risk factors that have been shown to be 

predictive of recidivism. Sex offenders are scored under the model based on the presence 

or absence of the risk factors in that offender’s crimes, and the offender’s risk of 

recidivism is determined by reference to the known recidivism rates of released sexoffenders who received the same score under the model.” Wooden I, 693 F.3d at 447 n.2.
17

of his past crimes or a rejection of the general value of treatment. In the district court’s 

view, the totality of the evidence showed that “Wooden has gained an awareness of the 

wrongfulness of his actions, that he has regret for his actions, and that he understands the 

consequences of his past behavior.” J.A. 669.

The district court also noted that Wooden’s age and health issues made it less 

likely that Wooden would reoffend if discharged. Wooden was 60 at the time of the 

hearing; as the district court noted, male sex drive decreases with age, which also reduces 

the risk of sexual re-offense. Moreover, Wooden was in poor health and generally used a 

wheelchair, which further reduced the likelihood that Wooden could engage in a forcible 

offense. Wooden planned to live with his sister on release, and she testified about the 

steps she would take to ensure that Wooden would not reoffend. In the district court’s 

view, Wooden’s planned living arrangements “will provide a safeguard that reduces the 

risk of recidivism.” J.A. 671. The district court therefore concluded that Wooden had 

carried his burden of proving that he no longer qualified as a sexually dangerous person 

under the Act, and the court ordered the government to release Wooden.5

The government appeals, arguing that the district court erred in concluding that 

Wooden did not suffer from pedophilic disorder and in concluding that Wooden would 

not have serious difficulty refraining from re-offending. 

Whether a defendant qualifies for commitment or discharge under the Act 

involves inherently factual questions to be resolved by the district court as fact-finder, 

 5 We granted the government’s emergency motion to stay Wooden’s release 

pending appeal.
18

and we review the district court’s factual findings for clear error. See Wooden I, 693 F.3d 

at 451. “A finding is clearly erroneous when although there is evidence to support it, the 

reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a 

mistake has been committed.” United States v. Hall, 664 F.3d 456, 462 (4th Cir. 2012) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). “If the district court’s account of the evidence is 

plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse 

it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have 

weighed the evidence differently.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

II.

We first consider the government’s challenge to the district court’s conclusion that 

Wooden’s past misconduct was the product of IDD, not pedophilic disorder.

A.

Although not identified as a separate issue on appeal, the government’s 

overarching claim seems to be that Dr. Winsmann’s testimony was not worthy of 

credence. We disagree. 

Winsmann is a licensed psychologist who teaches at Harvard Medical School. He 

provides treatment to patients, including 150-200 sex offenders, as well as patients with 

IDD, some of whom also exhibited sexually inappropriate behavior. Winsmann has also 

performed approximately 170 forensic evaluations in state and federal sexually-violentpredator cases; he found the defendants to meet the criteria for commitment in 45% of the 

cases. Winsmann is one of the leading experts focusing on questions of volitional control 

in sex offenders. In 2012, he published the first article in the field that attempted to 
19

“outlin[e] a protocol and approach [for] assessing serious difficulty in controlling 

behaviors.” J.A. 463. As explained in Winsmann’s article, the development of a 

protocol is critical because “specialized tests and procedures [for assessing volitional 

control] do not presently exist and mental health examiners have been, to date, relying 

entirely on their imprecise and unreliable clinical judgment.” J.A. 522. Winsmann 

founded the Boston Symposium on Psychology and the Law, an annual academic 

gathering of experts in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and the law. In 2015, the 

Symposium focused on the subject of volitional control in the context of civil 

commitment of sexual offenders. Winsmann’s qualifications and expertise, which are not 

disputed by the government, are thus well matched to the issues in this case.

Winsmann’s initial review of Wooden’s records immediately raised questions 

about Wooden’s intellectual capacity, and Winsmann administered a battery of tests to 

measure Wooden’s intelligence. Considering the results of those tests and his hours of 

interviews with Wooden, Winsmann ultimately concluded that Wooden suffered from 

IDD and that it was IDD, not pedophilic disorder, that was the driving force behind 

Wooden’s crimes.

Winsmann explained that a diagnosis of pedophilic disorder required evidence of 

“current arousal” to children. J.A. 478. Winsmann found no evidence that Wooden was 

currently aroused by children – Wooden repeatedly denied it in interviews, and 

Winsmann found nothing else in the record indicating current arousal. Winsmann 

testified that Wooden had a “global sexual interest” rather than a “focused preference on 

children.” J.A. 478. Winsmann based that determination on his interviews with Wooden, 
20

where Wooden reported three romantic relationships with adult women, and Winsmann’s 

interviews with two of Wooden’s sisters, who confirmed that Wooden had peer-aged 

girlfriends during the periods when he was not incarcerated. See S.J.A. 53.

Given Wooden’s global sexual interests and the absence of any evidence of 

current intense arousal to young children, Winsmann concluded that Wooden did not 

suffer from pedophilic disorder and that IDD provided a “better explanation” for 

Wooden’s offenses. J.A. 481. As explained in his report, Winsmann concluded that the 

original diagnosis of pedophilic disorder was wrong:

The past improper decision making was made through a past developmental 

lens. There is no clear and apparent evidence to support a diagnosis of 

Pedophilic Disorder, and, I believe, there is a better explanation for his past 

behavior when developmental considerations are properly given weight. In 

short, past diagnoses of a paraphilic nature were made in error.

S.J.A. 72. 

Winsmann testified that people with IDD are capable of personal and intellectual 

growth, but that the growth happens very slowly. He believed that Wooden had 

experienced sufficient growth over the years of his incarceration that he had developed 

“sufficient ability to weigh decisions and weigh outcomes.” J.A. 488-89. Winsmann 

stated in his written report that

Mr. Wooden, intellectual deficits notwithstanding, showed evidence of 

being able to examine the basis of and the associations to his thoughts so 

that the sequelae of events, from thought to action, does not lead to an 

offense. This is strong evidence of cognitive mediation – that active 

psychic process that allows for one to modulate behavior. 

S.J.A. 68.
21

Winsmann’s opinion is plausible, coherent, and internally consistent, and thus 

does not suffer from the problems that undermined the testimony of Wooden’s expert in 

the original commitment hearing. See Wooden I, 693 F.3d at 454-55 (“Dr. Campbell’s 

testimony was internally inconsistent and was otherwise deficient or problematic in so 

many respects that his opinion provides no safe harbor for the district court’s factual 

findings.”). Moreover, Winsmann’s belief that Wooden had slowly developed the ability 

to consider the consequences of his actions and modulate his behavior finds support in 

evidence before the district court.

Wooden was convicted multiple times of sexual crimes against children over a 

period from his late teens through his 20s. Wooden was sentenced to 25 years’ 

imprisonment in 1984 and was paroled in 2002, when he was 46. While on parole, 

Wooden participated in sex-offender treatment supervised by Dr. Ronald Weiner. In 

2005, Wooden reported the laundry-room encounter to Weiner. In the course of the 

ensuing investigation, Wooden stated during a polygraph examination that he had had 

sexual contact with a boy in the past year, and he told Weiner about two instances where 

he had come close to committing an offense but had changed his mind and did not go 

through with it. As to the questionable laundry-room incident itself, the facts as found by 

the district court established that Wooden was having sexual urges and dreams about a 

seven-year-old boy with whom he spent time alone, but Wooden did not act on those 

urges. Thus, comparing Wooden’s conduct in the 1970s and 1980s to his conduct in the 

early 2000s, Wooden went from committing multiple forcible sexual offenses to 

committing some kind of sexual contact on one occasion while stopping himself from 
22

offending on several other occasions. While Wooden’s conduct in 2002-2005 was still 

problematic, it nonetheless represents a dramatic improvement over his conduct 30 years 

earlier. This trajectory is consistent with Winsmann’s testimony that people with IDD 

grow, but do so very slowly, and that they can learn to modulate their behavior.

Evidence of Wooden’s personal growth can also be seen in the change in 

Wooden’s testimony and demeanor between the proceedings in this case. In the 2011 

commitment hearing, Wooden was at times “difficult and recalcitrant,” Wooden I, 693 

F.3d at 445, and he repeatedly insisted that his young victims came to him seeking sex, 

id. at 445-46. In the 2016 discharge hearing, however, Wooden was a cooperative 

witness, and he no longer claimed that the victims came to him for sex. Instead, he 

testified that they came to him asking for money and that he knew he shouldn’t have 

taken advantage of them. The district court, which had been involved with Wooden’s 

case from the beginning, found Wooden’s statements of regret to be credible. Wooden 

thus went from being uncooperative and in denial in 2011 to being genuinely remorseful 

in 2016. This change in Wooden’s behavior likewise provides support for Winsmann’s 

views.

Wooden’s behavior in prison provides further evidence of his personal growth and 

maturation. During his early years of incarceration, Wooden had many angry outbursts, 

and he was once transferred to a different prison after threatening his guards. As 

Winsmann observed, however, Wooden’s behavior has improved over the years at 

Butner. He has not had an angry outburst in at least a decade, and the number of 

disciplinary citations has dropped dramatically.
23

Winsmann’s testimony thus presented the district court with an overarching, 

unifying theory of the case: Wooden suffered from IDD, and the previous failure to 

recognize the effect of IDD on Wooden’s actions and communications caused other 

medical professionals to misdiagnose Wooden as suffering from pedophilic disorder. 

Winsmann’s theory is “coherent and facially plausible,” and it is not “contradicted by 

extrinsic evidence.” Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 575 (1985). 

Instead, Winsmann’s theory is supported by the slow improvement in Wooden’s 

behavior, as explained above. Accordingly, there is nothing in Winsmann’s views that, 

in and of itself, raises doubts about the district court’s decision to credit his testimony. 

See id. (“[W]hen a trial judge’s finding is based on his decision to credit the testimony of 

one of two or more witnesses, each of whom has told a coherent and facially plausible 

story that is not contradicted by extrinsic evidence, that finding, if not internally 

inconsistent, can virtually never be clear error.”). The question, then, is whether there are 

other errors in the district court’s analysis that would make the court’s conclusion that 

Wooden suffered from IDD, not pedophilic disorder, clearly erroneous.

B.

The government contends that “[t]he record as a whole, and Dr. Malinek’s 

testimony in particular,” show that the court erred in accepting Winsmann’s IDD 

diagnosis. Brief of Appellant at 15. In support of this argument, the government notes 

that Wooden committed several of his crimes in his late twenties and that he was still 

having pedophilic urges in 2005. In the government’s view, these facts cannot be 

reconciled with the district court’s conclusion that Wooden committed his criminal 
24

offenses because he had a developmental delay of 10-15 years as a result of his IDD. We 

disagree.

As to the reference to a 10-15 year developmental delay, the central part of the 

district court’s holding was that, as to his early offenses, Wooden was “unable to 

understand or control his sexual urges” because he “experienced the physical and 

hormonal development of a teenager and young adult but the cognitive development and 

maturity of a much younger person,” J.A. 657, but that Wooden had now grown and 

progressed to the point where he would not engage in the same conduct again. As 

discussed above, that general conclusion, which is based on Dr. Winsmann’s testimony, 

is supported by evidence in the record. Accordingly, even if the court’s reference to a 

10-15 year developmental gap did not precisely capture the nuances of the issue, the error 

does not undermine the district court’s analysis or ultimate conclusion.

As to the government’s larger point, the district court did not ignore Malinek’s 

testimony, but the court was not required to find it persuasive. The district court fairly 

summarized Malinek’s testimony and acknowledged Malinek’s testimony that IDD could 

not explain Wooden’s violent crimes against prepubescent children, see J.A. 653, 657, 

but the court nonetheless found Winsmann’s testimony to be more persuasive. Although 

a variety of factors go into a court’s credibility determinations, the district court put some 

of its reasons on the record: the court believed that portions of Malinek’s testimony were 

directly contradicted by the court’s own observations of and experiences with Wooden 

over the years and that Malinek focused too heavily on historical criminal behavior rather 

than Wooden’s present condition. Moreover, Winsmann reached his diagnosis after 
25

interviewing Wooden for hours and administering a battery of tests to measure his 

intellectual capacity, while Malinek rejected the IDD diagnosis without ever even talking 

to Wooden. See J.A. 480 (Winsmann testified that “you have to understand how a person

like this communicates. And these simple words can sometimes be misunderstood or 

taken out of context, if . . . you don’t have the experience working with him or . . . you 

don’t spend enough time with Mr. Wooden.”).

As just discussed, Winsmann’s testimony, standing alone, was coherent, plausible, 

and internally consistent; it is not any less so when it is placed beside Malinek’s 

testimony. Under these circumstances, the district court’s decision to accept Winsmann’s 

views over Malinek’s contrary views is not clearly erroneous. See Anderson, 470 U.S. at 

574 (“Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice 

between them cannot be clearly erroneous.”).

C.

The government also contends that the district court erred by crediting Wooden’s 

claims that he was sexually attracted to women without addressing Dr. Malinek’s 

assertion that such an attraction would not be inconsistent with a diagnosis of pedophilic 

disorder.

6

 We see no error.

 6 To the extent that the government suggests Wooden’s asserted interest in 

adult women is not believable, we note that Wooden’s sisters confirmed to Winsmann 

that Wooden had had peer-aged girlfriends. In addition, prison officials found pictures of 

lingerie-clad adult women in Wooden’s cell. Although Wooden claimed the pictures 

belonged to his cellmate, he admitted to Winsmann that he was sexually aroused when 

looking at the pictures. During a recorded phone call, Wooden also expressed interest in 

(Continued)
26

Malinek’s testimony was not contrary to the district court’s finding, as the court 

did not conclude that Wooden’s attraction to adult women precluded a pedophilicdisorder diagnosis. Rather, the district court concluded that Wooden had a “global sexual 

interest,” but that his impaired cognitive functioning and adaptive difficulties led him to 

act against children, “with whom he more easily bonded emotionally.” J.A. 658. Under 

these circumstances, we cannot say that the district court clearly erred by failing to 

explicitly address this portion of Malinek’s testimony.

D.

The government also maintains that the district court failed to reconcile its 

conclusion that Wooden suffered from IDD and was not a pedophile with the aggressive, 

calculating nature of Wooden’s prior offenses. Dr. Malinek testified that people with 

IDD are gullible and more likely to be the victim of violence than a violent aggressor. In 

Malinek’s view, Wooden’s behavior was very different from what would be expected 

from a person with IDD:

[T]he conduct and the planning and the isolating of the children . . . all . . . 

shows that is totally not IDD. That is forward, aggressive conduct directly 

that’s coming from sexual arousal. He’s not befriending them for 

friendship . . . as you would anticipate if he had just IDD.

J.A. 627. The government contends the district court failed to address this evidence. 

We disagree. Contrary to the government’s argument, the district court did 

consider and address this part of Malinek’s testimony. The court referred to this issue 

 

having a relationship with the female attorney representing him in these proceedings. See

J.A. 634. 
27

when summarizing Malinek’s testimony, see J.A. 653, and again in its substantive 

analysis, see J.A. 657 (“The Court heeds the testimony of Dr. Malinek that individuals 

with IDD usually do not commit sexual crimes but are instead often the victims of sexual 

assault.”). While the district court did not specifically explain why it did not find that 

specific portion of Malinek’s testimony persuasive, it was not required to do so. Our 

cases require district courts to take substantial contrary evidence into account when 

acting as the finder of fact, see, e.g., Wooden I, 693 F.3d at 451, but that does not mean 

the court must explain in detail why it rejects each and every individual piece of 

evidence. Here, the district court explicitly acknowledged Malinek’s views, but the court 

was nonetheless persuaded by Winsmann’s testimony that Wooden’s aggressive sexual 

behavior was the product of IDD. Under our deferential standard of review, the district 

court’s treatment and consideration of Malinek’s testimony was sufficient.

E.

The government also argues that the district court committed reversible error when 

it credited Wooden’s testimony that he was no longer attracted to young boys. The 

government notes that the record in the original commitment proceedings included 

evidence that Wooden was still experiencing pedophilic urges as late as 2011, see 

Wooden I, 693 F.3d at 452 (noting that in his 2011 deposition, Wooden acknowledged 

that he had been having sexual thoughts about children). According to the government, 

the district erred by overlooking this evidence and “accepting Wooden’s testimony that 

he [had] not experienced pedophilic urges since he was returned to custody in 2005.” 

Brief of Appellant at 17.
28

The government’s argument misstates the facts actually found by the district court. 

In this part of its analysis, the district court drew a distinction between exhibiting and 

experiencing pedophilic urges. The court concluded that Wooden had not “exhibited any 

pedophilic urges since 2005,” J.A. 659 (emphasis added), but it did not conclude that 

Wooden last experienced pedophilic urges in 2005. The district court found Wooden’s 

testimony that “he no longer experiences those [urges]” to be credible, id., but the court 

made no specific finding about when Wooden stopped experiencing pedophilic urges. 

Accordingly, the evidence from the 2011 proceedings is not inconsistent with the district 

court’s findings in these proceedings. Even if Wooden was experiencing urges in 2011, 

there is no evidence that he was outwardly exhibiting those urges at that time. Likewise, 

a conclusion that Wooden was experiencing pedophilic urges in 2011 is not inconsistent 

with the district court’s determination that Wooden was no longer experiencing urges at 

the time of the hearing in 2016. 

Moreover, while the government argues that the district court should not have 

accepted Wooden’s testimony about whether he had pedophilic urges, it points to no 

contrary evidence that the court should have accepted. The government nonetheless 

suggests that the absence of evidence of pedophilic urges does not mean that Wooden is 

not currently experiencing those urges, given that Wooden “showed no evidence of 

pedophilia while in custody between 1984 and 2001, but clearly experienced such urges 

when he went back to the community.” Brief of Appellant at 17-18.

To accept the government’s argument would effectively mean that an offender 

diagnosed with pedophilic disorder could never be released, as the government could 
29

always prove future impulse-control problems by pointing to past failures to exercise 

control. The structure of the Act, which requires discharge if the inmate is no longer 

sexually dangerous, clearly shows that Congress believed that sexually dangerous 

predators could change and grow out of the sexually-dangerous classification. The 

government’s argument forecloses that possibility, and we therefore reject it. Cf. United 

States v. Antone, 742 F.3d 151, 169 (4th Cir. 2014) (criticizing district court’s acceptance 

of expert opinion that “did not allow for a respondent’s subsequent growth”).

There is no evidence in the record that Wooden ever told anyone at Butner that he 

was still experiencing pedophilic urges or that he engaged in any conduct at Butner that 

would suggest he was still experiencing those urges.7 While Malinek and Ross testified 

that Wooden still suffered from pedophilic disorder, they offered no testimony about 

whether Wooden was suffering from pedophilic urges at the time of the hearing. Ross, 

who had interviewed Wooden in 2015, did not testify that Wooden admitted to 

experiencing pedophilic urges. She based her continued diagnosis on the fact that she 

believed Wooden suffered from pedophilic disorder at the commitment hearing and had 

seen “no evidence which suggests that that has changed in any way or that the IDD would 

be a better explanation for his sexual offenses.” J.A. 411. Malinek likewise provided no 

 7 While there may be limited opportunities for an inmate to engage in 

conduct indicative of pedophilic urges, it is not impossible. For example, when Wooden 

was transferred to Butner in 2005, he sent a Christmas card to the seven-year-old boy at 

the center of the 2005 laundry-room incident. Even the defense expert advocating against 

commitment in the 2011 proceedings believed that “[a]ttempting to correspond with 

children” was an “overt behavior[]” that would be indicative of “ongoing pedophilia.” 

Wooden I, 693 F.3d at 455. There is no indication that Wooden has ever again attempted 

to correspond with children.
30

testimony that Wooden was currently experiencing urges about children. Nor could he 

have, given that he has never interviewed Wooden and conducted his evaluation by 

performing actuarial assessments and reviewing documents such as police reports, 

mental-health treatment records, and prison records, none of which provided any 

information about whether Wooden was experiencing pedophilic urges at the time of the 

hearing.

The only actual evidence of whether Wooden was then experiencing intense 

pedophilic urges is found in Wooden’s testimony and that of Drs. Winsmann and Plaud, 

both of whom had interviewed Wooden multiple times. Wooden denied he was currently 

experiencing pedophilic urges at the hearing and in his interviews with Winsmann and 

Plaud. As experts with experience in sexually violent predator commitment proceedings, 

Winsmann and Plaud would not blindly take Wooden’s statements at face value, but 

would use their training to evaluate the credibility of his statements. Cf. United States v. 

Perez, 752 F.3d 398, 408 (4th Cir. 2014) (explaining that after interviewing Adam Walsh 

detainee, Dr. Plaud rejected detainee’s denial of pedophilic arousal and described 

detainee as “an untreated pedophile who is actively denying his sexual arousal patterns” 

(internal quotation marks omitted)). They nevertheless found his denials to be credible, 

and they testified that they knew of no evidence showing that Wooden was currently 

experiencing pedophilic urges.

The government thus asks us to reject as clearly erroneous a factual conclusion 

that was based on a credibility finding about the only affirmative evidence directed to that 

issue. The district court, as fact-finder, could have rejected Wooden’s claim that he was 
31

no longer experiencing pedophilic urges if the court had reason to doubt it. See 

Anderson, 470 U.S. at 575 (“[O]nly the trial judge can be aware of the variations in 

demeanor and tone of voice that bear so heavily on the listener’s understanding of and 

belief in what is said.”). The court instead specifically found Wooden’s denial of current 

pedophilic urges to be credible, and the government has pointed to nothing that would 

permit us to reject that conclusion. 

F.

Under clear-error review, our task is to determine whether “the district court’s 

account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety.”

Anderson, 470 U.S. at 573-74. If it is, “the court of appeals may not reverse it even 

though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the 

evidence differently.” Id. at 574. For the reasons discussed above, we cannot say that the 

district court’s view of the evidence regarding the IDD diagnosis is implausible. We 

therefore conclude that the district court did not err in finding that Wooden suffers from 

IDD, not pedophilic disorder.

III.

As previously noted, the district court, after rejecting the pedophilic-disorder 

diagnosis, considered whether IDD qualified as a “serious mental illness, abnormality, or 

disorder” under the Adam Walsh Act, 18 U.S.C. § 4247(a)(6), or whether Wooden 

suffered from any other qualifying condition. See J.A. 660-62. The district court 

answered those questions in the negative, and the government has not challenged those 

conclusions on appeal.
32

Under these circumstances, our determination that the district court did not clearly 

err when finding that Wooden did not suffer from pedophilic disorder is dispositive of 

this appeal. The Act authorizes the civil commitment of “sexually dangerous” offenders, 

18 U.S.C. § 4248(a), which requires, inter alia, proof that the offender “suffers from a 

serious mental illness, abnormality, or disorder as a result of which he would have serious 

difficulty in refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation if released,” id.

§ 4247(a)(6). Commitment is thus proper under the Act only if the offender (1) “suffers 

from a serious mental illness, abnormality, or disorder,” and (2) the illness, abnormality, 

or disorder causes the offender to “have serious difficulty in refraining from sexually 

violent conduct or child molestation.” Id.; see United States v. Caporale, 701 F.3d 128, 

130, 142 (4th Cir. 2012) (finding clear error in district court’s conclusion that inmate did 

not suffer from a qualifying serious mental illness, but nonetheless agreeing with district 

court that commitment was not authorized because government failed to prove that 

inmate would have serious difficulty in refraining from sexually violent conduct); Hall, 

664 F.3d at 467 (finding no clear error in district court’s refusal to commit inmate 

suffering from pedophilia and antisocial personality disorder because government failed 

to prove that inmate would have serious difficulty refraining from re-offense). Because 

we find no clear error in the district court’s determination that Wooden does not suffer 

from a serious mental illness within the meaning of the Act, commitment is not 

authorized, and there is no need for us to consider whether the district court erred in its 

analysis of the volitional-impairment issue.
33

In its briefs filed with this court, the government asserts that, at the very least, the 

district court should have imposed conditions on Wooden’s release. We disagree. The 

Act requires the “immediate[] discharge[]” of detainees who “will not be sexually 

dangerous to others if released unconditionally,” 18 U.S.C. § 4748(e)(1), and authorizes 

conditional discharges only for detainees who “will not be sexually dangerous to others if

released under a prescribed regimen of medical, psychiatric, or psychological care or 

treatment,” id. § 4748(e)(2) (emphasis added). A conditional discharge thus is authorized 

only for those detainees who require medical care or treatment to keep them from being 

sexually dangerous; a detainee who is not sexually dangerous must be discharged 

unconditionally. In this case, the district court concluded that Wooden does not suffer 

from a serious mental illness, disease, or abnormality, and that Wooden therefore is not

sexually dangerous. Accordingly, we conclude that the Act does not permit the 

imposition of conditions on Wooden’s release.8

IV.

“The question of whether a person is sexually dangerous is by no means an easy 

one,” Hall, 664 F.3d at 467 (internal quotation marks omitted), and the potential 

consequences of an incorrect decision are steep – a loss of liberty if an inmate is wrongly 

 8 18 U.S.C. § 4748(e), which explicitly authorizes conditional discharges, 

refers to discharge proceedings initiated by prison officials. This action, however, was 

initiated by Wooden himself, as authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 4247(h). Because § 4247(h) 

speaks in terms of “discharge” only and makes no mention of a conditional discharge, 

Wooden contends that a district court lacks authority to impose conditions on the release 

of a sexually violent predator in cases where the discharge proceeding was initiated by 

the inmate under § 4247(h). Given our conclusion that § 4248(e) does not permit a 

conditional discharge in this case, we need not consider this argument.
34

found to be sexually dangerous or unspeakable harm to a child if an inmate is wrongly 

released. Under our judicial system, however, it is the district court, not this court, that is 

charged with sorting out the factual issues and answering the ultimate question. In this 

case, the district court was presented with two plausible theories of the case, both of 

which were supported by facially credible expert evidence. Regardless of whether we 

would have reached the same conclusion had we been the factfinders, the factual findings 

of the district court “represent a permissible and reasonable interpretation of the evidence 

presented at the hearing.” Id. Under these circumstances, we are constrained to affirm 

the district court’s order requiring Wooden’s release.

AFFIRMED