Judge plans to release Texas sex offender from civil commitment

When the expected order is signed in the matter of Alonzo May, it will be the first time a judge has fully released someone from the program, which is based on a law that allows the state to keep those it deems violent sex offenders under supervision after their release from prison.

To date, only one person has been released from the program on a provisional basis since it was created 16 years ago. Another left the state after his civil commitment order was overturned by an appeals court.

Bill Marshall, May’s attorney, said that during a Tuesday court hearing, state District Judge P.K. Reiter told attorneys that he believed applying the statute in its current form to May would be a violation of the Texas Constitution and is ordering his release from the program.

Marshall said Reiter – who was one of first judges to preside over civil commitment trials for sex offenders in the state – asked him then to draft findings of law that would support the basis of the order releasing May.

“If he agrees with what I wrote, he can adopt all of it, some of it or none of it,” Marshall said, noting he expects the judge to sign the order.

The hearing came after May, ordered in 2013 into civil commitment, challenged his transfer from Fort Worth to a confined facility in West Texas. This year’s reforms to the civil commitment statute abolished the previous treatment program, which was supposed to operate on an outpatient model.

Marsha McLane, executive director of Texas Civil Commitment Office, which oversees the program, said the agency is awaiting a final order in the case. In the meantime, officials said, May, 56, was returned to a parole lockup in downtown Houston.

“We do not have a final order from the judge, and we can’t take any actions until we get one,” she said.

State prosecutors are also expected to file an emergency order to keep May in the program pending the outcome of an appeal they plan to file. Reiter could not be reached for comment.

Visiting judge

Texas is one of 20 states allowing for the civil commitment of convicted sex felons believed to have a likelihood of committing new sex crimes after completing their prison sentences. Those offenders are court-ordered into confinement at facilities where they are supposed to undergo treatment until they can be reintegrated into society. A Houston Chronicle investigation found that, of the more than 350 men ordered into the civil commitment program, nearly half have been sent back to prison for violating program rules, raising questions about the constitutionality of the way the program has been operated.

In June, the Legislature made sweeping reforms to the statute, in hopes of bringing it into constitutional compliance. Under the new law, offenders in the program are supposed to be in a tiered inpatient treatment program that allows them to progress to increasing levels of freedom toward an eventual release back into the community under supervision.

State Sen. John Whitmire, the architect of the new reform law, insisted Wednesday that Reiter was “just flat wrong.”

“This is the same guy who several years ago banished one of these offenders to another state, which is clearly illegal,” Whitmire said. “He’s a visiting judge who doesn’t have to stand for re-election, so he can come up with whatever he wants to – and that’s what he’s done here. Look, we rewrote the law based on the advice of legal experts. Until a federal judge tells me it’s unconstitutional, I’m going to consider it constitutional.”

The new program is headquartered at a repurposed private prison in Littlefield, in remote West Texas, about 40 miles northwest of Lubbock. Previously offenders in the program lived in halfway houses in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and El Paso and a boarding house in Austin.

Unresolved issues

May and almost all those men in those in the civil commitment program challenged their transfer into the new program, primarily on the basis that their behavior and progress in treatment would not benefit from placement in the new tiered program.

Tuesday’s hearing was requested by the state to ask Reiter, who in September refused to order May and four other men into the new program, to reconsider his decision.

State records show May was ordered into the civil-commitment program after he was released from prison after serving a 15-year sentence connected to parole violation for a sexual assault case. According to state officials, his victims included a 16-year-old girl and 17-year-old girl.

In his argument, Marshall said he presented the judge with information by the state agency that licenses sex offender treatment providers that stated outpatient treatment was more successful than inpatient. He also showed him a picture of the Littlefield facility from the Texas Civil Commitment Office’s handbook on the program, showing him the prison-like atmosphere that appears to still exist. Because they are supposed to be in a therapeutic environment, offenders in civil commitment can not be housed in lockup or prison facilities by law.

Reiter concluded that he felt recent reforms made to the program now made it unconstitutional if applied to May, Marshall said.

All with the exception of May ordered into the new program have now been taken to the Littlefield facility.

“I think it’s a recognition that issues with the statute have not been resolved,” Marshall said. “And it’s a big step toward getting them resolved.”