One of the foundations of a civilized society is the concept that people who do wrong need to be held accountable for their crimes. What naturally follows from that precept is that once a person has successfully paid society back by serving their prison sentence, they have earned the right to be free and return home.
What would you think about a slick scam that legally circumvented such justice? A system where, after serving years in prison and mere days before being released, the state went back to a new court and a different judge to seek an additional sentence that would keep that individual incarcerated for the rest of their life? This is what the criminal justice system calls “civil commitment” and it is quietly still occurring in over 20 states.
If the moral injustice of this doesn’t upset you, maybe this will help: Civil commitment costs state taxpayers between $100,000.00 – $268,000.00. Per year. Every year. Per person. For the rest of the inmate’s natural life. In Minnesota, more people have died in civil commitment then been released. There are nearly 7,000 souls being held captive under civil commitment sentences in the 20 states that still have these laws, and because so few ever get released, this number only increases.
Civil commitment is additional incarceration, often for an “indeterminate” period of time, after a person has served their entire prison sentence for a sex offense. People are housed in a prison-like facility with chain-link fences topped by razor wire and patrolled by uniformed armed guards, background checks for visitors, monitored phone calls & mail and numerous other restrictions. The only difference between a prison and a commitment facility is a prisoner has a scheduled release date.
For additional information on civil commitment, please visit www.cure-sort.org or www.aiustfuture.org. For specific information about stopping Minnesota’s civil commitment program, visit endMSOP at Facebook, or email [email protected].
Decades ago, there was a movie, Midnight Express, about the true story of Billy Hayes who was caught smuggling drugs out of turkey. He was sentenced very harshly and had a corrupt attorney. After serving many years, his sentence was increased. Somehow, he escaped and the movie audience applauded. We all considered it to be a happy ending. Can you see the parallel to the U.S.’s justice system? I pled guilty to some charges that I did not know about and were false. My attorney should have told me of those charges. He also claimed to have never lost a case, one of many lies. He demanded the equivalent of $37,000 (today’s money) and spent less than 8 hours on my case. He refused to return any funds.
We need to understand that in today’s world, justice and restoration is primarily a thing of the past. Some may knock me for my reliance on God’s Word which is where both justice and restoration reside. After grappling with my faith after my wife’s death, I was able to recover…not in a church…but while incarcerated where we…all the ‘bad guys’ got together to pray daily, and a group of real Christian men came to us through the Kairos program and restored me to the knowledge of the blessings I had received throughout my life. My children and their families now live in Brevard County and one of my aims is to be a good father, neighbor, and church member in the eyes of God and my dearly departed wife. If we rely on the justice and restoration of man, we lose. If we put God and His people into the equation, we win. I now live the life of a winner thanks to God and the people he has put into my life. Florida Action Committee is one of those blessings.
This offender was just released from prison in June 2022. His arrest was for failure to update his drivers license within 48 hours, per the registry statute. However, since COVID, the DMV has not accepted walk-ins and instead requires an appointment. These appointments are taking months to obtain. Certainly no one is obtaining one within 48 hours. So isn’t impossibility a defense to this bogus hold-over charge while they “look for actual victims”?
Yes, your right on the money! Bogus charges just to lock him up.
I just posted a report on the history of the Texas Civil Commitment Office on my website. It is worth a read. The Texas program was once an outpatient program but switched to an inpatient program in 2015 and now Texas is no different than Minnesota.
I have often wondered about the ones who took a plea deal before the Jimmy Ryce act only to find at the end of their prison sentence they were now being civilly committed. If be like, “Hell no!” “That’s not in my contract.”
Then again, there is a ton of crap that was not in my 1995 contract with the state.
Violation of the contract makes the contract null and void, I say.
I agree with you. My 1993 conviction was based on a nolo contendre plea agreement. Nowhere in that agreement was there any mention of a registry because a registry did not exist in Michigan then. Its a breach of contract. If you and I had a legal binding contract, and one of us breached that contract, a lawsuit would be filed to compel compliance with the contract.
This was the craziest article of news so far: You tell me what wrong with this picture?
Sexual predator caught talking to children, BSO says. Now, a search for potential victims
Omar Rodríguez Ortiz, Miami Herald – 1h ago
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Aregistered sexual predator recently released from prison was seen talking to children near a Broward community center last week — and now detectives are seeking potential victims, according to authorities.
Frederick Thomas Muller, a Wilton Manors resident, has been charged with the sexual offender violations of failure to register as required and failure to renew information on driver’s license within 48 hours, Broward County court records show. The 38-year-old man is being held in county jail as of Monday afternoon.
A witness alerted Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies Thursday afternoon that a man appeared to be talking to children and attempting to lure them to him at Collins Community Center, located at 3800 Northeast Third Avenue in Oakland Park, BSO said Monday in a news release. The children he approached, investigators say, may have recently been dismissed from Oakland Park Elementary School, the agency noted.
Muller was later found and arrested just after 3 p.m. Thursday about a half mile from the community center, court records show. He was convicted in Broward of lewd and lascivious battery on a person aged 12 to 15 and was released from prison on June 27, according to BSO.
Detectives say no victims have come forward yet.
If anyone was victimized by Muller or has information about this incident, they are asked to contact BSO Detective Marlene Schnakenberg at 954-321-4789 or submit a tip anonymously by contacting Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS (8477), online at browardcrimestoppers.org or by calling **TIPS (8477) from any cellphone in the United States.
©2022 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
He was seen talking to children huh? Did this witness hear what he was saying to the children? Maybe he was telling the children to get away from him. Maybe he was saying something like, “I’m standing here waiting for my friend to come get me and I’m not supposed to be around kids so please step back away from me so no one will think I’m trying to do something bad.”
Why assume the worst? Just because someone is talking to kids doesn’t mean there’s ill intent.
I’m an avid bowler and play on a couple leagues. I practice twice a week, and during practice, there are often kids on a lane near mine. If I see a kid get discouraged over a bad shot, I’ll approach the parent and ask if its ok for me to give the kid some tips to help them do better. Its about promoting the sport, not about trying to abduct a child.
People need to stop jumping to conclusions and thinking the worst about a given situation.
One think I has always wondered about, if you are some “mentally ill” that you need to be “hospitalized”, then maybe you were so mentally ill as not to be responsible for your crimes. But that does not get determined until after your prison sentence.
You are so correct! Either I cannot control myself and am mentally ill OR I committed a heinous crime that I should serve a specific sentence for because I should’ve known better. Which is it? Apparently it’s both in Florida.
The movie “Minority Report” is becoming reality.
Lets lock up people and punish them for a crime that has not happened yet, but might happen in the future.
Judges who allow people who have served their sentence to continue to be locked up indefinitely are the same kind of judges who think its ok for a cop to pull you over and take all of the cash you have on you and make you prove that you didn’t steal it or got it from selling drugs. Its called asset forfeiture, although a better term is highway piracy.
I’m still waiting for someone to explain how one is considered perfectly sane at his trial or plea hearing, but somehow batshit crazy enough to force “treatment” when he’s released from prison.
We need to quit expecting common sense and justice in today’s legal systems. That way we will not be disappointed.
It seems to me that this so-called civil commitment is nothing more that a blatant violation of double jeopardy. If an original sentencing judge thought a guilty defendant was such a menacing risk to society, he would have handed down a much longer sentence as allowed by law.
Double jeopardy not only includes being charged for the same offense twice, it also prohibits extending a person’s sentence beyond what was already handed down.
How then do these laws still stand? How can judges allow this?
I refuse to call it civil commitment. Its PRISON plain and simple because you’re not free to leave when you want.
It is not punishment, it’s therapy. I would like to meet the judges who swallow that line. I have a perfectly good bridge in Brooklyn for sale.
I think the place you described is called a ‘stalag’.