HOUSTON (AP) - A Houston-area judge has ordered two violent sex offenders to be returned to Texas and placed in state custody once they complete lengthy prison sentences for sex offenses committed in other states.
State District Judge Michael Seiler in Montgomery County, north of Houston, issued the order this week for Melvin Cody Whipple, 58, and Lloyd Joseph Wilson, 44. A judge ordered the two to leave Texas in 2004, in an apparent violation of the state constitution, after they had completed prison terms for sex crimes, according to the Houston Chronicle (https://bit.ly/1u6SRxN ).
Whipple was convicted later in Utah of fondling a boy after showing him pornography and is serving a 15-year sentence. He’s scheduled for release in 2022.
Wilson, meanwhile, was imprisoned in Virginia after being convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl in 2005. His term lasts until 2031.
Law experts have questioned whether Seiler’s order carries legal weight, despite assurances by prosecutors that Texas still has jurisdiction over the two men. Seiler issued writs of attachment against Whipple and Wilson, a legal maneuver commonly used in civil cases to seize or reclaim property, the Chronicle reports.
“This seems to be more about public relations,” said Melissa Hamilton, a visiting criminal law scholar at the University of Houston Law Center.
Because it’s a civil matter, she said, the state may not have the same ability to retrieve a person as it does in criminal cases. “It’s not a tried and true legal maneuver.”
The 2004 orders required Wilson to reside in Virginia and Whipple in Utah. Each man also was told to send Texas prosecutors updates every 90 days on their addresses and information on sex offender treatment they were undergoing. But officials say they only received two updates from each man.
The banishment order brought further scrutiny of a controversial Texas agency, the Office of Violent Sex Offender Management.
Since the inception of the agency’s civil commitment program in 1999, more than 300 convicted sex offenders have been ordered into what is supposed to be a treatment program for people who suffer from a “behavioral abnormality” that makes them a continuing risk to society.
No detainee has been released for completing the treatment program in its history, leading legal experts and mental health professionals to question the constitutionality of the way in which the program is operated. Nearly half of the program’s detainees have been returned to prison or jail for violating program rules.
___
Information from: Houston Chronicle, https://www.houstonchronicle.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.