Fair v. State

161 P.3d 466, 139 Wash. App. 532
CourtCourt of Appeals of Washington
DecidedJuly 3, 2007
Docket34399-1-II
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 161 P.3d 466 (Fair v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fair v. State, 161 P.3d 466, 139 Wash. App. 532 (Wash. Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

161 P.3d 466 (2007)

In re the Detention of David T. FAIR, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Washington, Respondent.

No. 34399-1-II.

Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 2.

July 3, 2007.

*467 James Lewis Reese III, Port Orchard, WA, for Appellant.

Sarah Sappington, Office of the Atty General, Seattle, WA, for Respondent.

PUBLISHED IN PART

VAN DEREN, A.C.J.

¶ 1 David T. Fair appeals his commitment as a sexually violent predator (SVP) under Chapter 71.09 RCW, arguing that the due process clauses of the state and federal constitutions required the State to allege and prove a recent overt act (ROA) and that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding that he is a SVP. Because Fair has been incarcerated continuously for both a sex offense and a non-sex offense, and the evidence is sufficient to support the conclusion that he should be committed to the Special Commitment Center as a SVP, we affirm.

FACTS

¶ 2 In 1988, Fair pleaded guilty to one count of second degree child molestation. The trial court imposed a special sex offender sentence under former RCW 9.94A.120(7) (1988), the special sex offender sentencing alternative (SSOSA).[1] The SSOSA included a suspended sentence of 600 days' confinement with credit for 137 days served. It also required him to spend 180 days on work release, 10 years under community supervision, and to complete sex offender treatment.

¶ 3 On November 1, 1989, the State moved to revoke the SSOSA based on Fair's failure to remain in sex offender treatment and report to the Department of Corrections.[2] On November 10, 1989, Fair met an acquaintance, Steven Slagle, in a restaurant in Kitsap County. The two left the restaurant together with Fair driving Slagle's pickup. "At some point Slagle got out of his truck, and [Fair] hit him on the back of the head." Clerk's Papers (CP) at 122. He continued to beat Slagle and, when Slagle escaped into the *468 brush, Fair drove away in Slagle's truck. Five days later Fair was in New Mexico, where he robbed an elderly couple of $600 at gunpoint. While fleeing the scene, he ran through a road block and struck another vehicle, injuring the occupants. As a result of these events, a New Mexico court sentenced Fair to serve 90 months in prison.

¶ 4 Fair was extradited to Washington where the trial court sentenced him to 87 months for the 1989 Kitsap County robbery, consecutive to the New Mexico sentence. The trial court also revoked his SSOSA and required that he serve 20 months in prison on the child molestation conviction concurrent with the 87 month robbery sentence.

¶ 5 Fair was scheduled to be released from prison on June 28, 2004. On June 23, 2004, the State filed a petition to commit him as a SVP. Fair waived his right to a jury trial and the case proceeded to a bench trial.

¶ 6 Lisa Dandesku, Fair's primary treatment provider at the Department of Corrections Sexual Offender Treatment Program (SOTP), testified that Fair completed the twelve-month treatment program in March 2004. During his treatment, Fair admitted to having had sexual contact with 19 different individuals, including 17 child victims. Dandesku testified that Fair "couldn't really see how his sexual offending had negatively impacted anybody." Report of Proceedings (RP) at 44. Fair also minimized his violent, non-sexual offenses.

¶ 7 During treatment, Fair frequently reported sexual arousal and masturbation to thoughts of minor girls. Dandesku testified that Fair "did not want to stop masturbating to minors," and did not think there was anything wrong with having sex with children. RP at 48. At the conclusion of treatment, the clinical team assessed Fair as a high risk to reoffend.

¶ 8 Dr. Dennis Doren, a psychologist, also testified for the State. Doren testified that Fair admitted offending against 16 individuals, generally in the 8 to 12-year-old range. Although Fair admitted having sexual fantasies about children, he enjoyed the fantasies and was reluctant to give them up. Doren testified that with convicted sex offenders, sexual interest in children highly correlated with sexual reoffending. He diagnosed Fair with pedophilia, paraphilia (with a descriptor of urophilia),[3] alcohol dependence, cannabis abuse, and antisocial personality disorder.

¶ 9 Doren concluded that Fair's pedophilia was a mental abnormality that predisposed him to commit criminal sexual acts to a degree that made him a menace to the health and safety of others. Doren opined that Fair's antisocial personality disorder caused him to have "serious difficulty controlling his sexually violent behavior," and that Fair was likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence if not confined to a secure facility. RP at 291.

¶ 10 To predict the likelihood that Fair would reoffend, Doren relied on several actuarial risk assessment instruments. Because the tests produced mixed results, Doren could not reach a conclusion about Fair's likelihood of reoffending based solely on the actuarial instruments. Accordingly, Doren considered other risk factors, specifically, whether Fair had a high degree of psychopathy coupled with sexual deviance.

¶ 11 To assess Fair's psychopathy, Doren relied on the Psychopathy Check List Revised (PCL-R), a psychological test used "to assess the degree to which people have a certain type of personality structure." RP at 318. Under this testing method, the highest score measuring whether someone is a "prototypic psychopath" is 40. RP at 320. Fair scored 30, which ranked him as having a high degree of psychopathy. Doren testified that even without sexual deviancy, a high degree of psychopathy correlated with a higher risk of sexual recidivism.

¶ 12 Doren also concluded that Fair met the criteria for sexual deviance based on his pedophelia diagnosis. Fair was not tested with a penile plethysmograph (PPG),[4] but Doren testified that Fair's unwillingness to give up his fantasies and his ambivalence *469 about them could easily substitute for what a PPG would measure. Doren testified that even without Fair's self-reports of additional victims, he would conclude that Fair met the criteria for sexual deviancy based on his repeated reports of sexually fantasizing about "something other than consenting adults." RP at 325.

¶ 13 In his defense, Fair testified that he fabricated fantasies and offenses in order to get into a treatment program instead of serving his time in the general prison population. Theodore Donaldson, a specialist in forensic clinical psychology, testified on Fair's behalf. Donaldson believed that Fair had a thirty-six percent probability of recidivism over a fifteen year period based on his score of four on the "Static-99" recidivism test, one of the actuarial instruments that Doren also administered. According to Donaldson, Doren's recidivism calculation was too high because he should not have included the unverified incidents that Fair reported.

¶ 14 The trial court found that Doren's testimony was more persuasive and credible than Donaldson's. It concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that Fair suffered from a mental abnormality and was likely to engage in sexually violent acts if not confined. Accordingly, the trial court granted the State's petition and ordered Fair committed as a SVP on January 5, 2006. Fair appeals.

ANALYSIS

I. RECENT OVERT ACT

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

In re the Detention of Fair
167 Wash. 2d 357 (Washington Supreme Court, 2009)
In Re Detention of Fair
219 P.3d 89 (Washington Supreme Court, 2009)
In re the Detention of Lewis
163 Wash. 2d 188 (Washington Supreme Court, 2008)
In Re Detention of Lewis
177 P.3d 708 (Washington Supreme Court, 2008)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
161 P.3d 466, 139 Wash. App. 532, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fair-v-state-washctapp-2007.