HIGH TEXAS APPEALS COURT SAYS SEX OFFENDERS DO HAVE RIGHTS DESPITE HOLDING BY DALLAS COURT OF APPEALS IN KAUFMAN COUNTY CASE

 Earlier this month, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals at Dallas recently decided an important sex offender case out of Kaufman County, Dallas County's immediate neighbor to the southeast. The Court addressed the longstanding issue of the rights of sex offenders who are on probation in Texas, and, in its opinion, recognized their basic constitutional right against self-incrimination, as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.

The defendant sex offender had pled guilty to a charge of indecency with a child and was undergoing treatment in a program that required him to take several polygraph (lie detector) tests. For one year, he successfully passed the polygraph tests and attended over fifty group therapy sessions, as required by the program's guidelines.

When the defendant took his third polygraph test, he was questioned about any previous sexual offenses he might have committed. The defendant properly replied that he would not answer any questions that might implicate him in a crime. The Fifth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants the right to refuse to incriminate themselves. After he repeatedly refused to answer the questions, the test was ended, and the defendant was thrown out of the program.

After he was expelled from the sex offender treatment program, the State sought to accelerate the charge against him on the grounds that he failed to complete the program as required. https://askcompetentlawyer.com/sex-crimes/ The defendant protested, saying that he had been thrown out of the program for exercising his constitutional rights.

During trial, the State sought to portray the defendant as uncooperative and unsuccessful in therapy, despite his attendance at over fifty sessions of group therapy and evidence of his improvement as revealed by his journal entries. The trial court, without elaboration, agreed with the State and sentenced the defendant to an eighteen-year jail sentence.

When the defendant appealed the decision against him in the Dallas Court of Appeals to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (the highest court in Texas to hear criminal cases), the Court found that there was no reason to expel the defendant from the therapy program other than his refusal to incriminate himself during polygraph examinations. The defendant was a good and faithful participant of group therapy sessions and seemed to be making good progress in the program overall. His invocation of his Fifth Amendment rights was the only reason he was terminated from the program.

This was a good and necessary decision by the Court. Although sex offenders have often committed heinous crimes, some of them can be successfully rehabilitated, and the State of Texas needs to support those offenders who show they are making progress. It is true that criminals lose some of their constitutional rights after they are convicted of crimes, but they don't lose all of them, and it is important that courts defend their remaining rights.