{"id":650,"date":"2018-05-18T13:04:45","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T17:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearwatersexcrimeslawyer.com\/?p=158"},"modified":"2026-01-31T09:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T14:29:10","slug":"sexually-violent-predator-status-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/sexually-violent-predator-status-in-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"Sexually Violent Predator Status in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

State law allows the Florida government to ask a judge to force someone deemed a \u201csexually violent predator\u201d to be committed to a secure facility without his or her consent, even if the person has finished serving a jail sentence for a Florida sex crime. A recent case<\/a> out of the Fourth District Court of Appeal is a good example at how courts look at these requests.<\/p>\n

State prosecutors in 2015 initiated proceedings to have a defendant involuntarily committed as a sexually violent predator. He had been convicted of various sex crimes after a 1992 incident in which he assaulted one woman and attempted to assault another, according to the court. The cops used DNA evidence to link him to two rapes from the previous year. In one of those incidents, he allegedly followed a restaurant employee to her home and raped the woman. Two days after that incident, he accosted a woman who was leaving a spa, pulled her down on an embankment, and held a knife to her throat while he sexually assaulted the woman, the court said. The defendant was released from prison in 2003, but he was sent back to jail four years later when he was caught peeping and masturbating outside a woman\u2019s window.Prosecutors based the civil commitment case primarily on the testimony of one psychologist, Dr. Rapa. The psychologist told the trial court that the defendant had since the 1980s “cruised” around looking for people as objects of masturbation, engaged in voyeurism, and fantasized about rape.\u00a0Dr. Rapa also asked the defendant 10 questions designed to determine whether he was likely to commit additional crimes if released. Based on his age, his criminal history, and his responses to the questions, Dr. Rapa said his chance of committing another offense was 28 percent in the next five years and 43 percent over the next 10 years. She said the defendant suffered from voyeuristic disorder and anti-social personality disorder and recommended that he be placed in a secure facility, or otherwise he would be likely to commit new crimes.<\/p>\n

Although the defendant presented his own expert, who said he was unlikely to reoffend, the trial court tagged him as a sexually violent predator and ordered him to be committed.<\/p>\n

Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State law allows the Florida government to ask a judge to force someone deemed a \u201csexually violent predator\u201d to be committed to a secure facility without his or her consent, even if the person has finished serving a jail sentence for a Florida sex crime. A recent case out of the Fourth District Court of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sex-crimes"],"yoast_head":"\nSex Charge: Sexually Violent Predator Status<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Charged with violent crime charges? See how this ruling on sexually violent predator status your defense in Pinellas County. 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