Spokane jury refuses to commit sex offender

A Spokane County jury ruled Wednesday that James M. White meets only three of four requirements for locking him up as a sexually violent predator.

So White was set free.

The verdict apparently represented only the second time a Washington jury has refused to commit an alleged sex predator to the state’s Special Commitment Center in the same way that people with other dangerous psychiatric disorders are confined to state mental hospitals.

The first such jury verdict – out of more than 150 cases since the state sex-predator commitment law took effect in 1990 – was by a King County jury in October 2003 – in the case of Curtis Shane Thompson. About a year later, Thompson was charged with breaking into a woman’s apartment and raping her, and with attacking two women in an elevator.

Only three other alleged sex predators had been set free, all by judges, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.

The Morro Bay, Calif., psychologist who testified that Thompson didn’t meet the definition of a sexually violent predator gave similar testimony in White’s three-week trial.

White, 54, could simply be a sex criminal, without having a mental disorder that causes him to prefer “nonconsensual sex” as another psychologist testified, Dr. Theodore Donaldson told jurors.

“I thought he had a preference for sex any way it came,” Donaldson testified.

The way it came on Valentine’s Day 1974 was at knifepoint – in front of the victim’s two young children, whom he slapped when they screamed. White and a female accomplice kidnapped the victim and her children and sexually assaulted her in a vehicle.

Less than a year after his release from prison in December 1977, White molested a 5-year-old girl in Snohomish County. He got a 10-year suspended sentence and was sent to Eastern State Hospital for outpatient treatment as a sexual psychopath. His probation was revoked when he exposed himself to three girls in downtown Spokane in 1982.

White was again released from prison in January 1988, and was convicted of trying to kidnap a 17-year-old Spokane girl at knifepoint while she was waiting for a bus in November 1993. White fondled the girl and dragged her toward his car, but she struggled and White fled when a motorist approached.

Eastern State Hospital officials reported that White acknowledged two rapes for which he was never charged. Testimony also indicated he has frequently exposed himself to girls in public places – and even at Eastern State Hospital, where he flashed a 12-year-old girl who had come to visit her father.

White’s jury had no difficulty determining he has been convicted of sexually violent crimes, one of four elements necessary to commit him as a sex predator. Jurors also found he has a mental abnormality that causes him serious difficulty in controlling his sexually violent behavior, and that he is likely to commit more violent sex crimes if not confined.

But court-appointed defense attorney Chris Bugbee convinced the jury that Assistant Attorney General Krista Bush failed to prove White had committed a “recent overt act” – the fourth and final element necessary to commit White as a violent sex predator.

The fourth element wouldn’t have been necessary if state officials had filed commitment charges against White before he was released from prison in May 2000, when he completed his sentence for the attempted kidnapping in 1993. No such finding is required for sex offenders who are in prison for sex convictions.

White was sent back to prison in 2001 for violating his probation by allegedly raping a woman who lived with him at the Otis Hotel for 5 1/2 months that year.

The attorney general’s office filed sex-predator charges before White could be released again, but it was too late. By that time, the state Supreme Court had ruled that the recent-overt-acts exemption didn’t apply to prison terms resulting from probation violations.

So Bush had to prove the allegations that caused the probation violation – without resulting in a rape charge – constituted a “recent overt act.”

The alleged victim said White struck her and forced her to have sex against her will. But testimony indicated she failed to report the incident promptly and continued to live with White.

Bugbee emphasized to jurors that, however much they might like to declare White a sex predator, they couldn’t do so if they had reasonable doubts about his girlfriend’s rape allegations.

Bush asked for 48 hours to warn White’s victims and to consider filing an appeal that might keep White incarcerated, but Superior Court Judge Greg Sypolt said state law required him to release White.

White is required to register as a sex offender. Attorneys said one of his former girlfriends had offered to let him live with her.