Karen, while I generally agree with you on this, the crime is a bit on the heinous side… and is the exact kind of fuel that gets thrown on the fire we’re fighting. So it’s really difficult to advocate for or see this as someone who should be on the streets.

That said, the right way to have gone about keeping someone like this off the streets would’ve been a life sentence. Not committing them beyond their sentence. He attempted to murder someone and acted brutally (assuming the conviction matches the actual crime).

Was ~30 years a long enough sentence for someone with a conviction of this type? He was previously convicted of rape, after all. Then, on parole, he did it again…only introducing attempted murder this time. A life sentence would’ve probably been justified at that point. Could the judge even hand a life sentence in that jurisdiction with those conviction at that time? Who knows. But it seems appropriate.

So now we have someone who would’ve qualified as a RSO having already proved they’re capable of repeat-offense, even an increase in offense. Do we need to give a third chance? Nope. But again, should’ve been done at sentencing. Not under civil commitment. So I agree that commitment under RSO laws is already unfair and also hurts our cause because it is a nice little example our opponents will use to say “see we kept this person off the streets with RSO commitment”

Now, if he truly is quack quack nuts, there are psych commitment options in at least some states. I think that would be a legitimate way to commit someone if he is demonstrating *currently* that he is mentally unfit, with little weight placed on his history.

He’ll get out and ruin our whole movement.