[Note: Friends of Justice is a personal blog. I speak only for myself.]
On August 24, we posted the following article from the Washington Post. The authors have requested that we repost the article with the following preface:
On October 17, 2019, after a two-week civil trial in Arlington County, Virginia, a seven-member jury found Galen Baughman to be a so-called “sexually violent predator” (SVP). Galen was slapped with the SVP label despite having never even been accused of any violent act, nor engaging in predatory behavior—nor even committing any crimes since his teens. If his appeals are unsuccessful, Galen now at age 36, faces the prospect of lifetime civil commitment at the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation, a high security prison with a different name.
Galen’s trial provides a window into the Kafkaesque legal process for civil commitment, in which the state can violate basic legal rights, including due process; can engage in expert shopping; and routinely draws on what can only be characterized as “junk science” to inflict grossly excessive punishment. Galen was convicted not for anything he has done, but for what the state’s hand-picked experts claimed he might someday do.
The following article was written just prior to Galen’s trial. Our worst fears about the conduct of the trial, and its outcome, were borne out. Only the prosecution’s “experts” were permitted to testify. No exculpatory evidence was admitted. After a one-sided trial, an effective advocate for the rights of people accused of sex offenses was convicted.
—Philip Fornaci and Roger Lancaster.
Here is the article.
