In re Morse
Annotate this CaseWilliam Morse petitioned for habeas relief from a superior court order which found under the Sexually Violent Predators Act (SVPA), there was probable cause to believe petitioner was likely to engage in sexually violent predatory behavior without treatment or custody. The court sustained petitioner’s objection based on California v. Sanchez, 63 Cal.4th 665 (2016) to portions of the experts’ psychological evaluations, but nonetheless found the remaining evidence was sufficient to support a finding that petitioner met the criteria of a sexually violent predator (SVP). Petitioner argued the court correctly found Sanchez applied at the probable cause hearing; that, after sustaining his hearsay objection to the experts’ evaluations, there was insufficient evidence to support the court’s probable cause finding; and that the State “waived” their right to assert Welfare & Institutions Code section 6602 was an implied exception to the hearsay rule by failing to raise this specific ground at the hearing. Therefore, petitioner argues the petition had to be dismissed. After review, the Court of Appeal determined the court erred in sustaining petitioner’s hearsay objection at the section 6602 hearing. The Court found the SVPA as a whole, and section 6602 in particular, evinced a legislative intent to allow a court to consider hearsay in the experts’ evaluations when making a probable cause determination. "In our view, requiring an evaluator to rely on nonhearsay only in preparing his or her evaluation of a person, or requiring the People to produce at an interim probable cause hearing independent foundational evidence to support the historical information relied on by evaluators, would undermine the purpose of such a hearing and the SVPA in general. . . . At an SVP trial, the People must still proffer nonhearsay evidence in proving beyond a reasonable doubt that a person is an SVP subject to civil commitment." The Court concluded there was ample evidence in the record to support the court’s probable cause finding. Petitioner's writ petition was denied.
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