There was supposed to be a placement hearing for convicted sexually violent predator Joshua Bryan Cooley today.
He is not listed on the calendar today. There is no recent information or recent minutes that show up in the system about today's hearing.
If the public was noticed regarding today's hearing and public could give input, why is there no information or a case associated with this placement hearing?
Even if the hearing is confidential, there is no public record of the placement hearing in the Humboldt Superior Court public record system. Why?
Previous posts:
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2018/06/over-objection-of-district-attorney.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2018/06/a-confidential-placement-has-been-found.html?m=
Word on the street is that Josh will be living in Freshwater when he gets out.
ReplyDeleteSo some more digging is necessary. I remember the Cooley SVP case around the office during my time but I never handled it. So in 2006, the SVP Law was changed by a popular initiative. Any SVP commitment was for life, although anyone currently serving an SVP confinement had a right to one more hearing. Once your final (or in the case of an initial determination hearing) was held, then the SVP has to petition the Court for a hearing to be determined that they should be released. That had to be backed up by declarations from 2 forensic psych experts. That would only get you a hearing. This was a vast change from the previous every 2-year commitment hearings. I do believe that petition process would be a jury trial, but I never saw one of those hearings ever. Only initial or final renewal hearings. The latter must have worked their way through the system as it has been 12 years since the law changed. Should not be any of those cases left. Unless Cooley was not found to be an SVP, which you would have had a hint of in the Courthouse, this is odd. One final word is that the state and the psych community were really giving these cases a hard look. There was this sea change when DSRM 5 came out and more and more of these doctors were changing their opinions. One Psychiatrist friend told me that the statewide director appointed by Brown was pressuring findings to have more people declared NOT to be SVPs. Hope as always this inside legal analysis helps your followers.
ReplyDeleteAllan, this is very helpful. Trust me, I have been digging. There is only so much time I can spend looking for minutes, cases which are not listed in the case information accessible to the public or cases not listed on the court calendar. You know the challenges of the Humboldt County Superior Court an and changes regarding transparency that have occurred due to my persistence.
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