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Rapist's prison term is up, but he could stay behind bars the rest of his life
By adamg on Fri, 09/12/2008 - 10:37am
A Suffolk Superior Court jury yesterday agreed with prosecutors that a man convicted of two rapes in Revere in 1982 is still a predator who should remain locked up even though he was nearing the end of his original sentences for those crimes, the Suffolk County DA's office says.
Richard Vega, also know as Richard Mazzarino, 46, was convicted in 1990 of raping a 72-year-old Texan woman visiting her son in Revere and a 25-year-old woman in a van at the Wonderland track in 1982. The DA's Sexual Assault Unit began proceedings against Vega, a prisoner at Cedar Junction, under a state law that lets prosecutors seek lifetime detention for un-rehabilitated predators:
After a four-day trial in which prosecutors called two state-certified psychological examiners who testified that Vega was likely to reoffend if released from prison, jurors found him to be a sexually dangerous person and [Judge Thomas] Connolly sentenced him to the mandatory term of one day to life.
He'll be sent to the secure Massachusetts Treatment Center at Bridgewater State Hospital.
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Comments
Is this constitutional?
I don't exactly want to see this guy set free, but conforming to the U.S. Constitution is still important. If he was convicted in 1990, how can he have his sentence extended as a result of a law passed in 1999? I thought that was called an "ex post facto law".
Reread the story
He's not being double jeopardied, though. They're involuntarily committing him to Bridgewater. People can be confined in Bridgewater under a criminal sentence OR a commitment order. It sounds like his sentence is done, but the evaluators feel he isn't safe to be in the community right now. So they're doing involuntary commitment.
The 1999 law just allows the courts to have a smoother process in commiting someone and makes this an easier option to pursue. We've always had involuntary commitment -- it's nothing new. Prior to 1999, they still would have been able to find clinicians who would judge that he wasn't safe to be in the community, but it would have taken more time and money to do so.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
just what we needed
The 1999 law just allows the courts to have a smoother process in committing someone
I remember a Globe investigative article a couple years ago, outlining how it was easy as pie. My memory is fuzzy, but I seem to recall that the list of people that can do it includes a nurse or doctor, police officer, or family member...and they can do it simply by saying you're a danger to others or yourself. No evidence need be presented, nothing you can do in your defense, no right to representation. Kinda like how MA's restraining order process works, in fact.
There were some frightening cases, like one person who refused to answer their psychologist (over the telephone, I believe) on whether or not they were having suicidal thoughts. The cops showed up a few hours later and arrested the guy face-down on the floor of his living room in front of his children.
I wish I could find the article now...
Uh, no.
You're thinking of a section 12, which allows someone to be transported to the ER and held until they're evaluated. Yes, I can section 12 someone simply by signing the paper that the person is currently a danger to self or others. A police officer can do so as well. A family member can't section 12 someone, but they can call 911 if someone is out of control and the police can do it if they feel it's appropriate. A section 12 doesn't commit someone. It just has them transported and evaluated, and the evaluation determines what the appropriate treatment is. Being committed to a locked institution is quite an ordeal, and is quite difficult to do. Most people who spend time in a locked treatment facility (like on a locked floor of a local hospital) have not been committed. In fact, most people who are evaluated at the ER aren't even sectioned 12ed; they're usually basically willing to go through with the evaluation and aren't actively resisting or trying to leave.
It's not a pleasant experience in general to be evaluated at a hospital against one's will, but it gets people appropriate treatment much more easily and humanely than, say, arresting them. The section 12 doesn't create a criminal record, as it shouldn't. I think it's preferable that police section 12 people instead of arresting them if it's clear that they need psych services rather than a criminal record.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
I still can't find it...
I'm sorry if it doesn't agree with your pristine view of the world from the Provider side of the fence....but the entire premise of that story/report was that it is frighteningly easy to get someone committed, and once you're in, the system is far worse than our court system, which is at least supposed to operate on the presumption of innocence.
Man, I wish I could find it, but I've tried everything I can think of in Google, and no luck.
Globe article on sexually dangerous offenders
A Google search for
sexually dangerous Massachusetts
led me to a Massachusetts Law Updates page, which in turn linked to this Globe article from 8/25/2005. Is it the one you are thinking of?
or maybe this is it?
boston.com/news...mess_held_inmates_past_their_time/
well, based on what you were
well, based on what you were saying in your initial reply, what you were describing IS a section 12 and it doesn't last that long. You go to the ER to be evaluated and if you're considered to be a danger you can be sent to the hospital against your will for a period of time no longer than 3 days according to the regs. There is also a way to involuntarily force someone to attend a 30 day substance abuse treatment program called section 35.
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/gl-123-toc.htm covers all of the mental health regs. the part on sexually dangerous persons is 123a
the flip side to that coin
the flip side to that coin is that if someone tells their therapist that they're feeling suicidal, and they don't do anything they can be sued for malpractice by the family. It can be a fine line to walk, and I think a lot of people err on the side of caution. Not to mention the emotional toll it would take to feel that you should have done something.
Eeeka's got it. It's a
Eeeka's got it. It's a civil commitment to a treatment center, not a criminal incarceration or extension of his sentence.
The commitment came after a trial of its own in which the defense called two expert witnesses to rebut the Commonwealth's experts -- Carol Feldman, PhD and JD, and Manju Vachher, PhD. The experts we call in these cases are qualified examiners, not nurses, doctors, or cops. It's an exacting set of proceedings conducted according to our ethics and state law.