Sexual Predator Moved To Mental Hospital

8-26-2016 Missouri:

A man from Greene County has been committed to the Department of Mental Health because he's a sexual predator.

Investigators have shown Sterling A. Mitchell, 70, has a history of offenses against young girls dating back to the 1950's.

He was arrested twice and served time on both charges.

The state has determined Mitchell is likely to abuse again so he's been sentenced to a mental health facility for an undetermined amount of time.

Evidence was presented at trial that Mitchell, a diagnosed pedophile, had an extensive history of sodomizing and molesting pre-pubescent girls dating to the 1950's.

He was not caught for the first time until 1990, when at the age of 44 he sodomized two girls, ages five and seven.

Mitchell told police he thought the children were mature enough to give permission and that he was educating them.

After serving a prison sentence and participating in sex-offender treatment, he was caught again in 2003 for sodomizing a pre-teen girl over a three-year span.

Mitchell said that if he was released into the community again, he wants to volunteer to work with children.

The jury found that he has a mental abnormality and is more likely than not to commit an offense again.

“The purpose of the sexually violent predator law is to keep our streets safer,” says Attorney General Chris Koster. “Sterling Mitchell is a dangerous man who has harmed numerous children, and he must be kept where he cannot harm any others.” ..Source.. by John Thomas

Sex offender faces a different kind of limbo

2006 to 2014 in jail, no hearing then in 2014 he won and was released. Roughly 9-years of his life wasted; story had to be told.

2-19-2014 Missouri:

STE. GENEVIEVE COUNTY • There is a special wing here at the county jail that holds nine detainees who were convicted long ago for sex crimes. They already served their time in prison.

Still, they wear bright orange jumpsuits as they await another kind of trial.

Flagged as possible sexually violent predators, the Missouri attorney general’s office wants them held indefinitely at a secure state mental institution called Sex Offender Rehabilitation and Treatment Services, or SORTS.

But first, in most of their cases, juries will be asked to make a rare decision in the American legal system — keep them locked away on the expectation of another crime.

“Somebody with a crystal ball believes I may commit a crime in the future. And they want to lock me up for the rest of my life in a mental institution out of fear,” detainee Macon Baker said from jail last week.

Baker, 49, who had a condo in Ballwin before going to prison in 1997, compared the civil commitment legal procedure to throwing a DWI offender in prison before getting pulled over for a repeat offense.

Child molester from Ballwin wins freedom on fourth try

2-21-2014 Missouri:

An enormous sigh of relief lifted from Macon Baker in court here Friday evening when a jury determined that he is not a sexually violent predator. Three previous attempts to commit him against his will to state mental health authorities ended in hung juries.

“Thank you,” Baker, 49, who used to live in the Ballwin area, said, looking toward the jury. Face flushed with emotion, he offered more thanks and hugs to his attorneys, Matt Fry and Eric Selig, also in shock.

Baker has been in custody since he finished a 10-year prison sentence near the end of 2006 for molesting a 7-year-old girl. At the time, a panel of prosecutors and mental health officials thought he should be held indefinitely at Sex Offender Rehabilitation and Treatment Services, or SORTS, a controversial program run by the Missouri Department of Mental Health.

But the first three juries couldn’t come to the needed unanimous decision that Baker has a “mental abnormality” that makes him “more likely than not” to commit future acts of sexual violence if not held in a secure facility.

Sex offender confined to controversial Missouri facility gets a break

6-18-2014 Missouri:

A state appeals court agreed on Tuesday with a child molester’s claim that an assessment by a panel of experts should have been allowed as evidence before he was locked up indefinitely as a sexually violent predator.

The multidisciplinary panel of mental health and criminal justice professionals had unanimously agreed that Lester Bradley did not meet Missouri’s definition of a sexually violent predator. But during his civil commitment trial, the state attorney general’s office blocked the report, arguing that the information was inadmissible per state statute. A probate judge agreed.

A Jackson County jury later determined Bradley was a sexually violent predator who should be committed for treatment in a secure facility.

“Because the court erred in determining that the assessment was inadmissible ... we reverse the probate court’s judgment and remand for further proceedings,” Western District appeals court judge Karen King Mitchell wrote in her 3-0 opinion.

Missouri sexually violent predator trials to be put on hold for class action lawsuit

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Oddball post, read last few paragraphs.

10-7-2014 Missouri:

The Missouri attorney general’s office has agreed to take a limited break from civil trials that seek to indefinitely commit sexually violent predators to secure treatment facilities run by the Missouri Department of Mental Health.

Sexually violent predators are held at Sex Offender Rehabilitation and Treatment Services, or SORTS, in Farmington and Fulton after completing lengthy prison sentences. Law enforcement officials try to commit about 20 men each year to the controversial program through civil commitment trials.

According to a stipulation filed Thursday in federal court, the attorney general’s office agreed not to set civil commitment cases for trial between Dec. 1 and May 1. The decision clears the deck for a large federal lawsuit against Missouri that alleges SORTS is unconstitutional. An April 21 trial date was recently set for the federal case, an attorney said.

“There is a fundamental constitutional issue that has to be resolved, and until that is resolved the process should be stopped,” said Eric Selig, lead attorney representing about 200 sex offenders who are plaintiffs in the class-action suit. “The AG’s office was pretty reasonable to agree with us to put everything on hold.”

The break is expected to affect seven civil commitment trials. Six separate cases set for trial before Dec. 1 will go forward.

As part of the agreement, plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit withdrew a motion for preliminary injunction that asked the judge in the case to stop the civil commitment process, including filing new petitions for commitment.

Eric Slusher, a spokesman for the Missouri attorney general’s office, said officials agreed to allow continuances in the seven civil commitment cases leading up to the federal lawsuit trial in April “in the interest of saving resources and disposing of the motion for preliminary injunction.”

The civil commitment process was the topic of an in-depth story in the Post-Dispatch that outlined the case of Lester Bradley, a sex offender who has refused treatment at SORTS. He was committed despite a unanimous decision by a panel of state mental health officials that he wasn’t more likely than not to commit another sex offense if not held in a secure facility. He won his appeal in June and is expected to be transferred home to Kansas City soon for a new trial that hasn’t been set.

Macon Baker, a sex offender from Des Peres, was a rare sex offender to win his civil commitment trial in February. The attorney general’s office had failed to get a unanimous verdict to commit him at three previous trials. ..Source.. by Jessee Bogan

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