Opinion ID: 223013
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The District Court's Sexual Dangerousness Finding

Text: We turn last to Shields's challenge to the district court's finding that he was a sexually dangerous person subject to civil commitment under § 4248. We review a district court's findings of fact following a bench trial with an advisory jury for clear error, the court's conclusions of law de novo, and any application of law to facts with some deference. Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a)(6); Carta, 592 F.3d at 39. We have closely examined the record and find no reversible error in the district court's carefully considered and well-supported determination. Shields does not challenge the court's resolution of the first two elements of the sexual dangerousness analysis. [14] Instead, Shields challenges only the third element: the determination of whether, as a result of pedophilia, Shields would have a serious difficulty in refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation if released. 18 U.S.C. § 4247(a)(6). The question of Shields's risk of future offense was by no means an easy one. As each of the experts who testified at trial acknowledged, there is no crystal ball that an examining expert or court might consult to predict conclusively whether a past offender will recidivate. At best, offenders can be located, by means of an actuarial tool, within a population of individuals that share certain characteristics and that studies have shown to recidivate at a particular rate. These tools are, as the district court's appointed expert cautioned, moderate predictors of risk. At trial, Shields's counsel effectively elicited testimony highlighting the shortcomings of the actuarial tools, among them the fact that the studies underlying the RRASOR and Static-99 were based largely on populations outside the United States, and that data collected by the United States Department of Justice documents lower recidivism rates than the actuarial tools would predict. In the end, however, it is for the factfinder to `decide among reasonable interpretations of the evidence' and determine the weight accorded to expert witnesses. United States v. Shelton, 490 F.3d 74, 79 (1st Cir.2007) (quoting United States v. Batista-Polanco, 927 F.2d 14, 17 (1st Cir.1991)). We find nothing to criticize in the district court's assessment of the evidence here. The court granted little weight to the raw scores returned by the experts' actuarial tools, and focused instead on the experts' evaluation of certain dynamic factors (age, treatment history, and ongoing deviant behavior) that tailor the actuarial risk assessment to an offender's individual circumstances. Of particular concern to the court and its appointed expert was Shields's failure to seriously engage in treatment given past opportunities: Shields offended anew after his first two courses of treatment, and refused sex offender treatment while in prison for his most recent offense. Given that the opinion by Shields's expert that Shields was not a sexually dangerous person rested to a large extent on evidence of Shields's purported commitment to change, this contrary evidence was undeniably significant. Shields argues here that the evidence does not support the district court's characterization of his treatment history, but his argument lacks force. Shields emphasizes that his first round of treatment, in the early 1990s, was not the rigorous, cognitive behavioral therapy model that is the prevailing mode of treatment today, and could not be expected to produce significant results. Following his 1998 offense, though, Shields did engage in a cognitive behavioral therapy treatment program. He tries to cast this as a success story, heralding the fact that his next crime in 2002 was not a contact offense but instead a conviction for possession of child pornography. The district court had ample basis to draw the opposite inference. Two of the testifying experts interpreted Shields's child pornography offense as a sign of ongoing deviance rather than improved impulse control, and it was entirely reasonable for the court to credit their testimony over Shields's expert's opinion. Shields further argues that the district court was wrong to draw adverse inferences from his refusal to enter sex offender treatment at FCI-Butner. Shields contends that it was reasonable to forego formal treatment at the time, as he was making progress in treatment with Dr. Graney and was not in the right state of mind to benefit from sex offender treatment. That may well be the case. However, though the episode might not be evidence of a general unwillingness to enter into sex offender treatment (the district court apparently viewed the episode that way), neither did Shields's treatment in prison offer any affirmative indication that Shields would in fact seriously engage with sex offender treatment when given a further chance to do so, as Shields's expert tried to suggest. Dr. Graney emphasized that she was treating Shields only for depression and related issues, and that her treatment was no substitute for a formal sex offender program. Consistent with these limitations, Dr. Graney testified that when Shields expressed a desire to break the cycle of offense in their sessions together, she told him he would need to address those issues in sex offender treatment. As the district court concluded, the bottom line was that Shields had undergone varying forms of treatment in the past and such treatment was not wholly effective in addressing his problems. In light of Shields's serious history of sexual crimes and the opinion of two out of three testifying clinical psychologists that he would have serious difficulty refraining from future offenses, we find the district court's determination that he was a sexually dangerous person within the meaning of § 4248 to be well founded. [15]