Case Name: William GALLOWAY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2005-04-01
Citations: 900 So. 2d 652
Docket Number: No. 5D04-1135
Parties: William GALLOWAY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: PLEUS and PALMER, JJ., concur. .
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 900
Pages: 652–655

Head Matter:
William GALLOWAY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 5D04-1135.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
April 1, 2005.
Rehearing Denied May 12, 2005.
James S. Purdy, Public Defender, and Nancy Ryan, Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellant.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Douglas T. Squire, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
William Galloway timely appeals the order adjudicating him to be a sexually violent predator and committing him to a secure facility pursuant to the Jimmy Ryce Act. We affirm.
The State filed a petition seeking to involuntarily commit Galloway under the Jimmy Ryce Act. After the trial court found that probable cause existed to believe that Galloway is a sexually violent predator and eligible for commitment, a jury trial was held. After hearing conflicting testimony from expert psychologists, the jury unanimously found Galloway to be a sexually violent predator. He was thereafter committed to the custody of the Department of Children and Families for treatment until such time as his mental abnormality or personality disorder has so changed that it is safe for him to be at large.
In challenging his commitment, Galloway argues that the State failed to show he suffers from a mental abnormality which was a constitutionally permissible basis for civil confinement and thus his motion for a directed verdict should have been granted. We disagree.
Both experts for the State diagnosed Galloway with paraphilia, a sexual disorder which indicates a person's involvement in deviant sexual behavior. One expert testified that Galloway had psychopathic characteristics and had the potential to act violently and that he needed to be placed in long-term care. The other State expert testified that Galloway was likely to commit future acts of sexual violence and was not deterred by punishment. He further believed that Galloway would have serious problems in controlling his sexual behavior. Conversely, the defense expert testified that Galloway does not meet the crite ria for commitment. The disputed expert testimony created a jury question on the issue of whether Galloway was a sexually violent predator and, accordingly, the trial court properly denied Galloway's motion for a directed verdict. See Donaldson v. State, 888 So.2d 107 (Fla. 3d DCA 2004).
In closing, we rióte that the dissent's concern over the "scanty factual basis" for the State's expert diagnosis appears to be nothing more than a re-weighing of the conflicting evidence presented below. Such conflicts were properly left to the jury to decide in this matter. In addition, the dissent appears to be advocating the imposition of a different standard of proof in Jimmy Ryce cases, even though that argument was neither argued nor preserved by the defendant below. In that regard, the dissent suggests that a change is needed in the articulation of the standard of proof used in Jimmy Ryce commitment proceedings, yet the suggested change has no substantive difference from the standard established in the Act. More specifically, the dissent does not believe that it is sufficient fox the State to show that Galloway was "likely" to commit future acts of sexual violence, but would accept a standard which would prove that Galloway was "more likely than not" to commit such acts. "Likely" is defined as "having a better change or existing of occurring than not." Webster's Sd New International Dictionary Unabridged (1976). As such, an event which is "likely" is, by definition "more likely than not."
AFFIRMED.
PLEUS and PALMER, JJ., concur. .
SHARP, W., J., dissenting with opinion.
. See § 394.910-.931, Fla. Stat.(2003).