IN RE THE DETENTION OF MARK WILSON, MARK WILSON Respondent-Appellant.
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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 7-832 / 06-1625
Filed December 28, 2007
IN RE THE DETENTION OF MARK WILSON,
MARK WILSON
Respondent-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Woodbury County, John D.
Ackerman, Judge.
Mark Wilson appeals from his civil commitment as a sexually violent
predator. AFFIRMED.
Mark C. Smith, First Assistant State Public Defender, Greta Truman,
Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Linda Hines and Denise Timmins,
Assistant Attorneys General, for appellee State.
Considered by Vogel, P.J., and Mahan and Zimmer, JJ.
2
VOGEL, P.J.
On June 7, 2006, the State filed a petition under Iowa Code section
229A.4(1) (2005) seeking the commitment of Mark Wilson as a sexually violent
predator. At Wilson’s civil commitment trial, the State introduced the videotaped
testimony of psychologist Dennis Doren, who opined that Wilson suffers from a
mental condition that predisposes him to commit sexually violent acts and is
more likely than not to reoffend if not confined in a secured facility.
Over
Wilson’s relevancy objection, see Iowa R. Evid. 5.401, Doren testified that in
classifying Wilson’s risk of reoffending he considered, among other things, three
actuarial risk assessments.
Specifically, Doren testified that according to the RRASOR test Wilson
shared characteristics with others who had a five-year reconviction rate of fifty
percent and a ten-year reconviction rate of seventy-three percent. He further
noted that according to the Static-99 risk assessment, Wilson’s score correlated
to a five-year reconviction rate of thirty-seven percent, a ten-year rate of forty-five
percent, and a fifteen year rate of fifty-two percent.
Finally, he testified that
pursuant to the MnSOST-R tool, Wilson’s score associated with a six-year
rearrest rate of twenty-one percent.
On appeal, Wilson claims these risk assessments were irrelevant and
unfairly prejudicial. 1 We review rulings on the admissibility of opinion evidence
for an abuse of discretion. In re Detention of Palmer, 691 N.W.2d 413, 416 (Iowa
1
The State asserts error was not preserved as the relevancy objection was not ruled
upon by the district court. The objections were made during the deposition and the court
was alerted to them at trial. While not directly ruled upon by the district court, it is
apparent in the court’s finding of facts that the testimony was admitted.
3
2005). The decision of a trial court concerning the admissibility of evidence will
only be overturned upon a showing that discretion was exercised “on grounds or
for reasons clearly untenable or to an extent clearly unreasonable.” State v.
Rodriquez, 636 N.W.2d 234, 245 (Iowa 2001).
In a previous case, we rejected reliability and trustworthiness challenges
in finding no abuse of discretion in the admission of these very same risk
assessment tools. In In re Detention of Holtz, 653 N.W.2d 613, 619 (Iowa Ct.
App. 2002), this court determined the evidence concerning these actuarial risk
assessment instruments went to the weight the evidence should receive as
opposed to the issue of admissibility. However, Wilson’s specific challenge to
the assessments in this case is not that they are unreliable or not actuarially
valid, but rather that they impermissibly measure reoffense rates far into the
future. He argues
[r]isk assessment rates for sex offenders for periods of time five
years and longer have no bearing on dangerousness at the time of
the commitment. They do not make the existence of any fact that is
of consequence to the determination of whether Wilson is a
sexually violent predator more or less probable.
We conclude the risk assessments in question were relevant to the
essential question of whether Wilson is more likely than not to commit a sexually
violent offense if he is not confined in a secured facility. As an initial matter,
here, like in Holtz, the assessments were merely part of a larger clinical analysis
that took into account a variety of other factors. See Holtz, 653 N.W.2d at 619
(“The instruments were used in conjunction with a full clinical evaluation and their
limitations were clearly made known to the jury.”). Doren testified that because
the actuarial risk assessments are not “fully comprehensive . . . he looked
4
beyond them with a combination of risk factors . . . , protective factors, and . . .
other clinical considerations.”
Furthermore, in In re Detention of Ewoldt, 634 N.W.2d 622, 624 (Iowa
2001), the supreme court held that the legislature did not impose a burden upon
the State to prove that alleged sexual predators are expected to reoffend within a
specific time period, particularly a relatively short, one-year time period.
It
rejected requests that the court place a temporal restriction on the question of
when the future acts should be expected to occur. Ewoldt, 634 N.W.2d at 624.
Also, in In re Detention of Selby, 710 N.W.2d 249, 253 (Iowa Ct. App. 2005), this
court rejected a claim that chapter 229A is unconstitutional simply because it
does not provide an explicit time frame for the adjudication of dangerousness.
We acknowledge that in order to support a civil commitment, an individual
“must be both dangerous and possess a mental abnormality that makes the
individual likely to engage in sexually violent predatory acts at the time of
commitment.”
Id. (emphasis added).
However, we believe the actuarial
instruments, while measuring future reconviction rates, assisted in understanding
this essential question.
Doren’s expert testimony made clear that the
instruments assisted his understanding of this issue, in conjunction with many
other factors, including Wilson’s current high degree of psychopathy and sexual
deviance. 2
The evidence of future reconviction rates measured in the challenged
instruments compared Wilson to a group of people with shared characteristics or
2
Doren testified Wilson suffers from, among other things, pedophilia, exhibitionism, and
antisocial personality disorder.
5
who have been rearrested within a specified time period. According to Doren,
they informed him of “characteristics that related to risk of the individual” and to
his risk of reoffense if not confined in a secured facility. The Code requires the
State to prove he “is more likely than not to reoffend . . . .” It would be impossible
for the State to present evidence, as Wilson would like, that would assess his risk
of reoffending immediately upon release.
However, as the State’s expert
testified, these forward-looking predictors were relevant to his current risk to
reoffend. We thus agree their relevancy was established. The court did not
abuse its discretion in allowing their admission.
AFFIRMED.
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