3 Rapists Lose Bid for Release After Jail Terms

Three convicted rapists who complete their prison terms this month lost a bid for freedom Tuesday when a judge ruled they could be kept behind bars under a 7-month-old state law aimed at violent sexual predators.

The law--as upheld Tuesday by Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell--allows the state to keep sex offenders in psychiatric lockup after they complete their sentences if a court deems them a threat to society.

Being labeled a violent sexual predator would mean that Anthony Dacayana, 38, Ronald Steven Herrerra, 50, and Henry Salazar Vasquez, 62, would remain behind bars until doctors rule they are no longer threats, or until the law is overturned on a myriad of appeals now being prepared across California.

The three, who represent Ventura County’s first test of the new law, have several rape convictions each.

Herrerra was to be released this month after serving time for the 1971 home-invasion rape of a Ventura mother and her teenage daughter, Dacayana for raping a blind Ojai woman in 1988, and Vasquez for molesting a 5-year-old Oxnard girl in 1985.

Courts in Orange and Santa Clara counties have upheld the violent sexual predator law, but those in the counties of Los Angeles, Riverside, San Francisco, Santa Barbara and San Diego have struck it down. The Los Angeles cases are making their way to the California Court of Appeal.

Prosecutors tout the law as protection against violent thugs who they say will almost certainly rape again. But defense attorneys say it violates several constitutional rights.

Deputy Public Defender Douglas Daily argued Tuesday that the law illegally stretches prison sentences for those who have done their time, violates protections against double jeopardy and unconstitutionally punishes convicts for crimes committed before its passage.

“These [defendants] are not fools, they know that people are changing the rules after the fact,” Daily said in an interview Tuesday after arguing on behalf of Herrerra and Vasquez. “This is an effort to keep them in custody and call it treatment. Any way you slice it, it is additional punishment.”

Attorney Timothy Quinn argued for Dacayana, asking the judge to reject the predator law.

“Although the statutory language says [they should] be treated only as long as these disorders exist, it seems to be intellectually dishonest,” he said. “In reality, it’s a dishonest effort to confine people once their sentences have been served under the guise of therapy. . . . There’s no way the state can argue they’re not being re-punished for their crimes.”

But prosecutors defend the law as a powerful tool for stopping rapists like these from offending again.

“You can’t just look at the effect on the defendant,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox told the judge.

“This is going to impinge on [defendants’] liberty,” she said. “But the Legislature has made a finding that certain people who have certain mental disorders and are likely to offend again sexually pose a tremendous danger to public safety.”

As she spoke, Herrerra sat in the jury box in prison blues, shaking his head in disagreement.

Vasquez nodded off for a few minutes.

Dacayana, still being held at Atascadero State Hospital, was not present.

Fox said the men are not being denied due process, because a judge will rule whether they should be held for trial to determine whether they are sexual predators. If so, they will receive psychiatric treatment, not more punishment.

After a two-year course of treatment, prosecutors are empowered under the law to argue that the treatment be extended for another two years.

“We have the burden of proof to show that the person’s mental disorder continues to be a threat,” she said.

Campbell ruled that psychiatric treatment is not punishment, thus shooting down defense theories of double jeopardy and retroactive sentencing.

Convicts such as these would very likely undergo treatment in mental health facilities, not prisons, he said.

“At the end, they can petition in court and [prosecutors] would again have to prove they should not be let out without further treatment,” Campbell said. “I believe it’s constitutional.”

Herrerra spoke up briefly: “I’ve finished my time. I’ve never had a psychological or civil commitment.”

But Campbell ruled that Herrerra and others like him convicted in Ventura County will have to face the law when their time is up.