The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today authorities can't keep a serial North Shore exhibitionist locked up past the end of his sentence because there's no proof his behaviors trend toward the "sexually dangerous."
Essex County prosecutors wanted to keep Donald Suave away from the public even after he finished his latest sentence, something they could do with a declaration that he posed a sexual threat. Several months before Suave's latest sentence ended, in March of 2010, they filed a petition to keep him in custody; Suave has been held since then as the DA's request wended its way through the court system.
The state's highest court said that even though Suave seems unable to stop masturbating in front of women - he's been convicted eight times since 1986 and has admitted he's been doing it since he was 13 - he has never touched or gone after his victims:
Where the judge found no evidence that the defendant had ever stalked, lured, approached, confined, or touched a victim, that there was no reason to believe he would target children, and that there was no reason to believe the defendant's future sexual offenses would escalate into contact offenses, the judge should have concluded that, as a matter of law, the manner in which the defendant would likely commit a future "sexual offense," i.e., open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior, would not render him a "menace to the health and safety of other persons." G.L. c. 123A, § 1 (definition of "[m]ental abnormality").
We do not suggest that all sex offenders who have committed only noncontact sexual offenses and who are likely to commit only noncontact sexual offenses in the future are not menaces to the health and safety of other persons. Each case is fact specific. We can easily envision a case where the outcome might be different, based on the specific behavior of a particular defendant. We hold only that the findings made as to the manner in which this defendant has behaved historically, and the findings as to his predicted criminal sexual behavior, do not support a finding that he is a "menace" within the meaning of G.L. c. 123A. Because of the result we reach, we do not need to decide the constitutional question. The defendant is entitled to a judgment that he is not a sexually dangerous person.
