Jury Locks Up Sex Offender Indefinitely Rapist Paschke Sent To State Facility For Predators

A 52-year-old rapist is a dangerous sex offender who should be held indefinitely in Washington state’s predator commitment center, a Spokane County jury decided Thursday.

The seven-woman, five-man jury took nearly four hours to reach its unanimous decision.

Herman “Butch” Paschke becomes the first person tried in Spokane County and sent to the state’s McNeil Island Special Commitment Center.

Paschke, who had been convicted of two rapes in Spokane County during the 1970s, was not facing criminal charges during the two-week trial.

Instead, the civil trial asked jurors to decide whether he suffers from a personality disorder that makes him likely to offend again if released from custody.

Jurors agreed he does. Paschke will join more than 50 men and women who have been sent to McNeil Island under Washington’s 1990 Community Protection Act.

Once there, Paschke can undergo sex offender treatment and, ultimately, be released if he can show he’s no longer dangerous.

But if treatment isn’t successful, he’ll stay in custody indefinitely.

“It was a very complex matter to evaluate this case,” said juror Joseph Reilly. “The key issue we faced was determining that Mr. Paschke does indeed have a personality disorder and needs treatment.”

Senior Assistant Attorney General Greg Canova told jurors in closing arguments that Paschke is incapable of controlling deviant fantasies that lead to sexual assaults on women.

In 1971, Paschke was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl he abducted from an east Spokane house.

He was released after serving six years for that crime, but was convicted of raping a Spokane woman in 1979.

Paschke was released again on parole in 1987. Two years later, he returned to prison for making threatening obscene phone calls in the Everett area.

He finished that sentence at the Washington State Penitentiary in 1994. But a week before his release, the state launched the petition to declare him a predator.

Paschke has remained in custody until the trial.

In addition to the convictions, the jury also learned that when Paschke was 15, he raped his grandmother.

Instead of jail time for that crime, he spent several months at Eastern State Hospital. He then was placed on probation with Spokane County Juvenile Court.

If jurors had decided he was not a predator, he would have gone free. Paschke testified he would enroll in sex-offender treatment and substance-abuse counseling if released.

Defense attorney John Rodgers urged jurors to consider Paschke a changed man, someone who’s realized he’s made horrible mistakes. After the verdict, Rodgers said he couldn’t blame the jury for committing Paschke as a sex predator.

“I feel defeated by this statute,” Rodgers said. “It puts jurors in a difficult spot where it makes it easy for them to say, `better safe than sorry.”’ After signing the order of commitment, Superior Court Judge Tari Eitzen told Paschke: “I want to thank you for the commendable manner you’ve maintained throughout this difficult trial.”

Paschke answered: “Me and my family want to thank you for everything you’ve done, your honor.”