D.A.’s Office Applies New ‘Sexual Predator’ Law

Armed with the state’s new “sexual predator” law, Orange County prosecutors are battling to keep two convicted child molesters who have served prison sentences from returning home this month.

Prosecutors contend that both men are still dangerous, and argued this week that both should be committed to state mental hospitals under the law, which already faces legal challenges in other counties.

Local authorities are using the law for the first time against Carlos Dominguez, 47, who served prison terms for molesting a 10-year-old girl in the Disneyland parking lot and raping another 10-year-old girl outside Knott’s Berry Farm.

Dominguez was hours away from release Tuesday when investigators from the Orange County district attorney’s office arrived at the state prison in Chino to shuttle him to a local court hearing.

“He was very upset when he found out what he was in court for,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles Middleton said.

The second case involves Michael Burgos, 28, of Westminster, who was convicted of molesting a 3-year-old neighbor girl and two other children in 1992. He was sentenced to six years in prison in 1993, and was scheduled to be released from Atascadero State Hospital later this month.

The sexual predator law, in effect since January, was motivated by public uproar over the release of rapists and child molesters who had served their sentences and could no longer be legally confined.

State legislators passed the law over objections from civil libertarians and defense lawyers who contend it violates the Constitution because it punishes people twice for the same crime. Critics say the law also reduces standards of what constitutes mental illness in order to incarcerate someone.

A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge upheld the constitutionality of the law in February in the case of a serial rapist who had served his prison sentence. The ruling was the first test of the law, and an appeal is pending before the state Supreme Court.

Orange County Deputy Public Defender Alan Crivaro, who is representing both local defendants, said Wednesday that he intends to raise similar constitutional challenges as the cases move closer to possible trials.

“These people have been punished, they have served their time,” Crivaro said. “And now we want to confine them further on what they might do in the future.”

The law applies to sex offenders who assault two or more victims, authorities said. If two mental health experts find an offender “mentally defective” and still a likely danger to the community, the inmate is referred to the prosecutor in the county where the last offense was committed.

Prosecutors can then ask for a jury trial to determine whether the offenders should be committed for two years to a state mental institution. A unanimous verdict is required and the civil procedure can be repeated every two years if the offender continues to be deemed a sexual predator by psychiatrists, authorities said.

“This is the only stopgap measure there is to keep those sexual offenders who are already in prison from gaining access to the community when they have not been cured of their problems,” Middleton said.

If Dominguez and Burgos had been convicted of the same crimes under today’s laws, they could have faced life sentences, Middleton said.

Orange County Superior Court Judge David O. Carter ruled this week that there is enough evidence to block the release of both men, and set civil commitment proceedings against them.

Both cases involved multiple victims, and state mental health experts have found that there is a likelihood they might commit other violent sexual crimes, the judge said.

Dominguez, of Norwalk, was convicted in 1987 of molesting a 10-year-old family friend in Disneyland’s parking lot and received a 12-year prison sentence. He was convicted in 1981 of raping another 10-year-old girl in his van parked at Knott’s Berry Farm.

Burgos pleaded guilty in 1992 to molestation and lewd conduct charges involving a 3-year-old neighbor girl and two other young girls, the daughters of an uncle’s girlfriend, and was sentenced to a year in county jail and five years’ probation, according to court records.

Ten days after his release from jail in 1993, he was arrested by Garden Grove police for lurking around another 3-year-old girl playing in her front yard, and admitted he intended to fondle the child, according to court records. In 1993, he was sentenced to six years in prison.

It is common for the Department of Corrections to release inmates early if they have earned credits for good behavior or participated in work programs.

The judge set hearings next week to determine if the men must face trials, which would be held within the next few months. They are being held without bail in Orange County Jail.

Prosecutors do not yet know how many imprisoned Orange County sexual offenders might be affected by the new the law.