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Court: Guy may be a disgusting perv, but that doesn't mean he's dangerous
By adamg on Fri, 09/16/2011 - 11:13am
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today authorities can't keep a serial North Shore exhibitionist locked up past the end of his sentence because there's no proof his behaviors trend toward the "sexually dangerous."
Essex County prosecutors wanted to keep Donald Suave away from the public even after he finished his latest sentence, something they could do with a declaration that he posed a sexual threat. Several months before Suave's latest sentence ended, in March of 2010, they filed a petition to keep him in custody; Suave has been held since then as the DA's request wended its way through the court system.
The state's highest court said that even though Suave seems unable to stop masturbating in front of women - he's been convicted eight times since 1986 and has admitted he's been doing it since he was 13 - he has never touched or gone after his victims:
Where the judge found no evidence that the defendant had ever stalked, lured, approached, confined, or touched a victim, that there was no reason to believe he would target children, and that there was no reason to believe the defendant's future sexual offenses would escalate into contact offenses, the judge should have concluded that, as a matter of law, the manner in which the defendant would likely commit a future "sexual offense," i.e., open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior, would not render him a "menace to the health and safety of other persons." G.L. c. 123A, § 1 (definition of "[m]ental abnormality").
We do not suggest that all sex offenders who have committed only noncontact sexual offenses and who are likely to commit only noncontact sexual offenses in the future are not menaces to the health and safety of other persons. Each case is fact specific. We can easily envision a case where the outcome might be different, based on the specific behavior of a particular defendant. We hold only that the findings made as to the manner in which this defendant has behaved historically, and the findings as to his predicted criminal sexual behavior, do not support a finding that he is a "menace" within the meaning of G.L. c. 123A. Because of the result we reach, we do not need to decide the constitutional question. The defendant is entitled to a judgment that he is not a sexually dangerous person.
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Comments
Any relation...
..to Rico? Jeez, we start locking up exhibitionists we'll have to put away Ben Mezrich and his wife. Whatever will the Globe do when they run out of photos of Tom and Giselle?
pretty whacky story
i hope this guys not going to the patriots game sunday.i heard everyone is getting lubed up.
ROFL
LOLOLOL! I love this comment.
Cold comfort
for the next woman who has to experience his "noncontact" offense. The problem here is that the court may know that this fellow has never "stalked, lured, approached, confined, or touched a victim," but the victim absolutely does not know this. Being flashed can be a terrifying experience, particularly if you are alone on the subway or on the street with the flasher AND he is masturbating, prescisely because you don't know what the guy is going to do next.
I'm very disappointed in this ruling.
The threat of being flashed
The threat of being flashed vs. holding someone who has completed his sentence INDEFINITELY. Like, forever, if they decide they want to, with merely one hearing a year. You can't give the state the power to just keep people locked up because they might commit another crime. Keeping a guy in the prison system indefinitely without ANY violent offenses AND having completed his prison sentence? That's way more disturbing than this weirdo possibly whacking off in public sometime in the future.
If he does it again, he goes to jail again, and for longer. But keeping him there because he might do it? That shouldn't even be an option.
I second the disappointment in this ruling.
When I was in middle school, myself and the other 20 or so girls in my gym class had the unfortunate experience to witness a sick pervert who would on occasion flash/masturbate when we would run outdoors during nice weather. This guy was a pig and it was disturbing and unsettling to have some a-hole come out of nowhere to get his jollies in front of us. To my knowledge he was never caught. As a result we were no longer allowed to run outdoors that year. Maybe if the men who commented on this thread had a daughter who this happened to, they would feel a little more offended by these whack-jobs.
whack jobs?
good one!
I have a daughter
and I hope I do a good enough job of preparing her for the idea that she will come across some crazy and obscene behavior at some point in her life, that it isn't about her, and that it is not something that needs to be felt as a harmful moment. It's a shame that your experience ended in the way that it did. It would have been great if instead of ending outdoor running, somebody identified or caught the flasher.
But here's the thing I most hope to convey to my daughter. We have a complicated justice system in this country, one that tries for fairness, balance, and above all, one that tries to avoid incarcerating the innocent, or those who have already completed their punishment. I'm very uneasy with the idea that we can have indefinite imprisonment for crimes that in and of themselves do not constitute a grave threat just because there is a potential for recidivism.
Seeing a naked person when you expect not to see one, seeing a naked person that you do not wish to see, seeing a naked person performing indecently. Those are all objectionable, no question about it. But they are not something that deserves the same punishment as murder. As a society, we need to become better at figuring out how to handle this type of behavior, not simply lock them up and throw away the key.
Part of the problem for some
Some people would say the problem is that we treat the nude body as some sort of locked-away secret mystery that these items are only objectionable because we don't have a healthy acceptance of nudity. If the "victim's" response was to shrug and keep walking or possibly even laugh as if what they've been shown isn't even that impressive a specimen, then "crimes" like this would shrivel up quite a bit. The flasher is excited by the *idea* that he's disturbed his "victim". Why would he keep doing it if there was no positive feedback for his actions?
Not advocating for everyone to walk around nude...just pointing out that we've artificially (usually due to long-seated religious steads) created these "problems" for ourselves as a society because we act as if nudity is ever a problem.
Amen!!! Thank you, Kaz! You
Amen!!!
Thank you, Kaz! You got it right on!!!
Something like this
I suggest "That looks like a penis, only smaller" ;-)
Ban the jerker from the T
The snappy retort is not really on your mind when this happens to you.
This guy will be out on the T for 14 hours a day trying to find girls to yank in front of. He will probably do it many times before somebody reports him. He should at least be banned from public transportation.
+++++++
I can only + this once, but yes, Kaz has it right.
I grew up in a nudist household, and frequently vacation at nudist resorts. I'm just not surprised, and certainly not annoyed, by nudity. I did once encounter a flasher/masturbator, and it took me several moments to realize what he was up to. The fact that he was naked didn't phase me, so I really wasn't paying attention to him at all. It then dawned on me; wait we're out on the street shouldn't he be wearing clothes and what the heck is he doing oh you've got to be kidding me (eyeroll).
Because I wasn't terrified, I was able to keep it together, realize that I was on a very well traveled street in broad daylight, and therefore in virtually no danger. And I was not traumatized by the situation.
We do need to pay some attention to the public masturbators; their behavior needs to be discouraged, and a very small minority will escalate to more dangerous behavior. We also, as a society, need to grow the heck up about nudity.
Me too
I've worked in Porn (behind the scenes) so another nude body to me is just yet another thing to look at.
I've been flashed on the T too (and I'm a guy).. several times. By both men and women. (yes flashers will flash guys too because its taboo and they seem to get off on it)
Sometimes I wish carrying MACE or Pepper Spray didn't require a weapon license in this state. Cuz I'd just tell girls to just mace the f**ker when it happens. A few times of getting maced by women, he might learn his lesson.
okay, speaking *as* someone's daughter...
i support this court ruling.
and yes, i have been flashed. and yes, i have seen people masturbate when i really didn't want to or expect to. and once i found it traumatic, and a few times i just found it freaking annoying. maybe once it wasn't so bad at all. but my personal reaction, just like your personal reaction, isn't really germane here. although i am sorry that happened to you, and was upsetting.
the issue is that civil commitment is a huge deal. taking away those basic fundamental rights, when not in conjunction with a criminal punishment, just ain't right. and the courts are saying that if we *are* going to do it, we should only do so when that person poses a danger to the health and safety of others. non-contact sex crimes, like flashing, just don't always hit that mark. and i support the courts for saying that this time didn't.
fwiw, my personal $0.02, i am against civil commitment entirely. so i am wee bit prejudiced. and i am glad the courts are limiting it.
The cost of a free society?
So you're saying that having some guy jerking off looking at you is the price we pay for a free society? Is there anything comparable we expect boys and men to put up with? But then again, men are not victims of sexual assult, rape, domestic violence, and harassment to the same extent that women and girls are, so if some guy masturbated in front of them it really shouldn't be a big deal.
This happened to my sister and my best friend (on separate occasions) when they were walking alone on the street in broad daylight. Yes, my sister joked later that she wished she had said "Gee, it looks like a penis, only smaller!" but she was very afraid to be out alone for awhile after the experience. My best friend was so terrified she vomited and the fellow ran off. Who's to say that that didn't stop him from doing something else? Again, the court knows that based on his history this guy isn't going to physically assult his future victims, but his future victims don't know that.
I don't know the answer but I sure wish we didn't know that this guy is definitely going to do this again and some unsuspecting woman will have to deal with it.
Yes
Our society places a higher value on personal, physical freedom over one's right to not be offended, started, or even frightened (within reason on that last one, of course). It isn't perfect, but it beats the totalitarian alternative.
There's a lot more that we
There's a lot more that we have to put up with in order to have a free society. We have to put up with klansmen saying hateful things. We have to put up with gay people holding hands in public, and we have to put up with listening to people complain about it and talk about how horrible it is that their children might see gay people holding hands in public. We have put up with people who have committed a crime being released and yes, maybe committing another crime in the future (unless you think that as soon as someone has committed one or three crimes, they should be locked up forever).
And yes, men have to put up with plenty too, in some cases more than women have to put up with. Men have to put up with people being randomly aggressive towards them and threatening physical violence (women need to deal with this too, but there are still a substantial number of people who think it's OK to threaten violence against other men but not women).
And remember, it's not just free society that has a price; incarceration has a price too. There's the loss of individual freedom, the cost to taxpayers feeding and housing them, but there are other effects as well, like the risk of prison rape. This is a substantial problem, and much more likely to someone like the guy in question, a nonviolent sexual offender. Do we sentence him to life imprisonment, and increase his chances of actually being raped, because he might shock someone once again without actually physically harming them?
Jp Gal... it looks like woman
Jp Gal... it looks like woman bear more of the "costs of a free society than men".... so what's new about that.
What's the point of a
What's the point of a sentence if the state can just jail people indefinitely after the sentence is over?
Good to hear from members of
Good to hear from members of the Masturbators Defense League here.
I didn't see anyone defend
I didn't see anyone defend public masturbation. What I see is people standing up for a principle, which is do your time and go free. Keeping someone locked up indefinitely after they serve their sentence is not conducive to a free society. If you want public exhibitionists locked up for life, then you should lobby for harsher punishment for the crime, not arbitrary decisions after the sentence is complete.