California v. Superior Court (Quarles)
Annotate this CaseIn June 2018, the superior court determined that Alvin Quarles, who had been committed as a sexually violent predator (SVP) since 2014, should have been conditionally released. The State unsuccessfully brought a motion for reconsideration of that order. Seeking a writ of mandate, the State petitioned the Court of Appeal to prohibit Quarles' conditional release. To this end, the State contended: (1) the superior court misinterpreted the law and thus erred in ordering Quarles' conditional release; (2) substantial evidence supported Quarles' continued confinement because he remained dangerous and was likely to reoffend; (3) exclusion of certain polygraph evidence was error; and (4) all proceedings relating to Quarles' petition to be conditionally released should have been open to the public. On the record before it, the Court of Appeal expressed concern over whether the superior court applied the correct legal standard in granting Quarles's petition to be conditionally released. "Because of the significance of conditionally releasing an SVP back into the community (especially one with a criminal history like Quarles's)," the Court granted some of the requested relief and ordered the superior court to hold a new trial to determine whether Quarles should have been conditionally released under the correct legal standard. The Court determined the other issues the State raised in its petition were without merit and denied the requested relief as to those issues accordingly.
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