California v. Presley
Annotate this CaseDefendant Gabriel Presley challenged his commitment pursuant to the Sexually Violent Predator Act (SVPA), arguing his commitment as a sexually violent predator (SVP) was erroneous because expert testimony at trial was based on case-specific inadmissible hearsay, in violation of California v. Sanchez, 63 Cal.4th 665 (2016). The trial court heard from four experts, all substantially agreeing defendant had a diagnosed mental disorder. The trial court observed that, though it was “required to consider the opinions of experts,” “as the trier of fact, [it] [didn’t] have to . . . agree with them.” The Court found the conclusion of one of the experts "to be a bit of an outlier," compelling the court to conclude ". . . that not only does [defendant] have a diagnosed mental disorder, . . . he is a danger to the health and safety of others, because I find that it is likely that he will engage in sexually violent predatory criminal behavior.” The Court of Appeal concluded the trial court did not abuse its discretion, as nothing in the record "dispels the presumption the trial court ignored material it knew was inadmissible under Sanchez."
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.