Killer Heat

THIRTY-EIGHT

Well, then, Nelly," Mike said, one arm on the kitchen table and the other brushing back his hair, trying to work his charm on her. "Why don't you take us inside Troy Rasheed's head?"

Mercer was on the phone to Lieutenant Peterson suggesting an allpoints bulletin for the released prisoner. He was reading a date of birth from the prison records and the inmate number so that New Jersey's Department of Corrections could e-mail a copy of the photograph to go out on the wire services

He was paroled in July, Loo. We can always pick him up on a violation."

Kallin turned to look at Mercer and wagged a finger at him. "That's wrong. There's no parole hold. You can't get him for that."

Mercer put his hand over the receiver. "What do you mean?"

"Rasheed served all his time. Maxed out after twenty-one. The last three years of incarceration have been a civil commitment."

"Sweet," Mike said. "A state that allows chemical castration and civil commitment. Get used to me, Nelly. I may pack my bags and take up residence in New Jersey."

There were few issues more controversial in the criminal justice system than the new laws, passed in fewer than twenty states, that allowed the government to authorize the involuntary commitment of convicted sex offenders who have completed their entire prison terms. The acknowledgment of the high recidivist rate of rapes-and murders- by these predators, all over America, led to this radical form of preventive detention, in which the prisoners are transferred to psychiatric lockups at the end of their terms and held for as long as they are deemed a risk to society.

"Politicians love this kind of hot-button fix, Mr. Chapman."

"Put away the bad with the mad and everybody on the street cheers. We're just revving up for it at home," Mike said. The legislature had defeated proposals to introduce the law in New York, until the governor was successful in pushing it through just months earlier.

"The defense lobby fought it pretty hard in New York," I said. I hadn't yet participated in any case that had gone forward. "Is that why you were so worried about your role in telling us about Rasheed's release? This commitment proceeding is a very hush-hush event, isn't it? I've only heard rumors from my counterpart in Bergen County."

Mercer hung up the phone and joined us at the table.

Nelly Kallin pushed her glass away. "The whole thing gives new meaning to the word secret. If you knew how many men have been sent to Kearny and how many have come out, you'd understand why. We've got close to three hundred prisoners being held there. The state wins 95 percent of the cases, and the hearings are closed."

"How can they be closed? Who attends them?" Mercer asked.

"New Jersey, unlike the few other states that have done this, seals the commitment process. We don't use a jury system, on the theory that we're protecting the patient's confidentiality. So Troy Rasheed's name has never entered any public record since he finished serving his sentence."

"Nowhere? There's no record of this?"

"No. Two Superior Court judges handle all of these matters, and then the cases are sealed. If you don't hear the facts from me, I doubt there's any way you could find out any of them. And once I tell you, I'll probably be planning an early retirement."

"Nelly, you point me in the right direction and I'll take it the rest of the way. If you go, I go with you. Coop won't let them can you," Mike said.

She looked at me for reassurance that I couldn't give her. This wasn't the normal whistle-blower situation.

"How did it work?" Mercer asked, his deep voice and earnest expression helping to calm the nervous woman. "Rasheed's hearing."

"Like every other uncomfortable mix of law and psychiatry," she said. "The SVPA-the Sexually Violent Predator Act was passed in 1998, sort of designed along the lines of commitments for the mentally ill. But there's a major distinction."

"What's that?"

"In a proceeding for a mental patient, the focus is on the patient's state of mind, his current condition. Things he did in the past, even in those cases in which crimes were committed, they're not usually relevant. But at Kearny-and for Troy-they use the prior crimes as critical evidence of his thinking, his behavior, his probability of offending again in the future. The law lets us keep these monsters confined for their thoughts, not just their actions."

"Count me in," Mike said, standing and starting to pace the old wooden floorboards of Kallin's kitchen. "Thought police-my kind of department. I'd love to make collars just for what the bad guys are thinking, before they pull the trigger."

"So the patient's state of mind is at issue," I said. "I guess that lets in just about everything, right? Hearsay, old psych evaluations from the pretrial exams, statements he made in treatment, while incarcerated?"

"That just scratches the surface. The shrinks testify about the prisoners' sexual tastes and their fantasies-what are supposed to be their fantasies. Prosecutors are able to shop around for psychiatric opinions. Well, the state can almost always find some reason to keep these guys behind bars."

"Then why did Rasheed get out this time?" I asked.

"Because he learned how to beat us. Troy copied the handful of guys who made it out before him. And I'm convinced that you'll find he didn't pounce on these victims-these women who were murdered- like he did on Jocelyn and the others. I'm sure of that. Something put them in his path and this time he thought he knew how to get them to come along with him, without even having to show a knife."

There seemed little prospect at the moment of reconstructing the last hours-or minutes-of the lives of Amber Bristol, Elise Huff, and Connie Wade.

"So how did it go for Rasheed?" Mercer asked again.

"Almost four years ago," Kallin said, "just a few days from the end of his jail time, he was told he was being transferred to Kearny. That's how it always begins. A secret process, with a surprise notification."

"But who picks which prisoner goes?"

"My colleagues-the administrators at DOC. No written guidelines."

"That's part of the reason these commitments are being challenged in federal court," I said. "The inmates claim they're unconstitutionally arbitrary."

Kallin hesitated and looked out the window. I followed her line of vision and saw only the hedges between her small yard and the house next door.

"Did you see someone? Something?"

She went back to twiddling her thumbs. "Probably just the neighbors."

Mike stood behind her and kept his eye on the narrow alleyway.

"After that, the attorney general's office screens the cases. They usually support us in about half the applications. Troy was no different from any other inmate when he got here. He'd spent almost half his life in prison, was just days from walking out, but then got smacked in the face with the news that he wasn't going anywhere."

"So the first hearing was three years ago," Mercer said.

"Yes. And there aren't many perps who make it through that initial one. They're so angry about the transfer, all the state has to do is present its diagnosis and tack on the fact that the guy has bad control of his impulses. What they really have to show-and it was easy in Troy's case-is that he has serious difficulty in controlling his behavior."

"What was his diagnosis?" I asked. "Personality disorder, NOS, Ms. Cooper," Nelly Kallin said. "NOS?"

"Not otherwise specified. It's the same diagnosis that got him dis- charged from the army when he was twenty-one years old.