In Re: The Commitment of Richard Reyes v. the State of Texas ( 2024 )

In The
Court of Appeals
Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo
No. 07-24-00139-CV
IN RE: THE COMMITMENT OF RICHARD REYES
On Appeal from the 421st District Court
Caldwell County, Texas
Trial Court No. 23-O-097, Honorable F.C. “Chris” Schneider, Presiding
July 31, 2024
MEMORANDUM OPINION 1
Before QUINN, C. J., and PARKER and YARBROUGH, JJ.
A jury found appellant, Richard Reyes, to be a “sexually violent predator” under
chapter 841 of the Health and Safety Code, the Texas Civil Commitment of Sexually
Violent Predators Act. Pursuant to that finding, the trial court entered an Order of
Commitment providing that following Reyes’s release from imprisonment, he immediately
be transported to a contracted Texas residential facility for sex offender treatment and
supervision. By two issues, Reyes argues the evidence was legally and factually
insufficient to support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that he has a behavioral
1 The Texas Supreme Court transferred this appeal from the Third Court of Appeals. Thus, we are
bound by the latter's precedent should it conflict with ours. TEX. R. APP. P. 41.3.
abnormality that makes him likely to engage in a predatory act of sexual violence. We
affirm.
Background
In 2003, Reyes was convicted and sentenced for aggravated sexual assault of a
child and attempted sexual assault of a child. He pleaded guilty to the offenses and is
also serving a sentence for indecency with a child by exposure. Before his release from
prison in May 2023, the State filed a petition in Caldwell County district court to civilly
commit Reyes as a sexually violent predator under the Act, alleging he was a repeat
sexually violent offender who suffers from a behavioral abnormality that makes him likely
to engage in a predatory act of sexual violence. A clinical psychologist, Dr. Christine
Reed, and Reyes testified at the trial. The jury found he had such an abnormality and
likelihood, and the trial court entered judgment manifesting that finding and ordering his
civil commitment.
Analysis
By his two issues, Reyes challenges the legal and factual sufficiency of the
evidence supporting a finding that he has a behavioral abnormality that makes him likely
to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence. He claims that because Reed, the State’s
expert, found Reyes is not a sexual recidivist, the evidence supporting the jury’s verdict
is legally and factually insufficient. We overrule the issues.
The standard of review is set forth in In re Commitment of Stoddard, 619 S.W.3d
665, 674-75 (Tex. 2020) and In re Commitment of Delacruz, No. 03-19-00420-CV, 2020
Tex. App. LEXIS 10576, at *3-4 (Tex. App.—Austin Apr. 8, 2021, pet. denied) (mem. op.).
We apply it here.
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The Act provides for the involuntary “long-term supervision and treatment of
sexually violent predators.” TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. § 841.001. Proving that a
person is a sexually violent predator requires proof of two elements: 1) the person is a
“repeat sexually violent offender” who 2) “suffers from a behavioral abnormality that
makes the person likely to engage in a predatory act of sexual violence.” Id. at §
841.003(a). “Behavioral abnormality” means “a congenital or acquired condition that, by
affecting a person’s emotional or volitional capacity, predisposes the person to commit a
sexually violent offense, to the extent that the person becomes a menace to the health
and safety of another person.” Id. at § 841.002(2); In re Commitment of Martin, No. 03-
23-00128-CV, 2023 Tex. App. LEXIS 6758, at *2-3 (Tex. App.—Austin Aug. 30, 2023, no
pet.) (mem. op.).
We first note that sexual recidivism is not an element of the test. Nowhere does
the Act state that one must commit a sexual offense, be punished, released, and go out
and commit another sexual offense. Rather, the Act requires proof that the person is a
“repeat sexually violent offender,” meaning someone who has committed more than one
sexually violent offense and sentenced for at least one. See In re the Commitment of
Joiner, No. 05-18-01001-CV, 2019 Tex. App. LEXIS 8032, at *3-4 (Tex. App.—Dallas
Aug. 30, 2019, pet. denied) (mem. op.) (a person is a repeat sexually violent offender “if
he has been convicted of more than one sexually violent offense and a sentence was
imposed for at least one of the offenses”). And, the evidence illustrated that Reyes met
that component. Because the statutory definition is not ambiguous, In re Commitment of
Smith, 562 S.W.3d 800, 804 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2018, no pet.), we forego interpreting
it to include that which it does not say. And, as for whether the evidence legally and
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factually supported the finding that he had a behavioral abnormality that made him likely
to engage in a predatory act of sexual violence, we conclude it does.
Reed, a clinical forensic psychologist, presented her expert testimony to the jury.
She explained her education and experience as well as her evaluation of Reyes and his
records. She then described her diagnoses of Reyes, discussed the offenses for which
Reyes had been convicted and sentenced, and explained why she believed Reyes suffers
from a behavioral abnormality that makes him likely to engage in a predatory act of sexual
violence.
Her diagnosis of Reyes resulted in the opinion that he was a person with “Rule Out
Pedophilic Disorder” due to his “intense urges, sexual fantasies or sexual behaviors
involving a prepubescent child [under the age of 13] . . . [occurring] over the course of
about six months,” among other things. Such a disorder can predispose a person to
commit a predatory act of sexual violence.
The offenses against the ten-year-old included several occasions over a period of
months. According to the child, he and Reyes would play the “magnet game” in which
the child would “put his head up against . . . Mr. Reyes’ pants and they would pretend to
be stuck together.” Reed described this game as “grooming” the child. Reyes also
exposed, on multiple occasions, his penis to the child. And, at least once, Reyes grabbed
the child’s head and pulled it towards his penis and wanted the child to put Reyes’s penis
in his mouth.
Reed testified that Reyes continued to deny any intentional sexual act against the
child, claimed there was only one instance, and maintained there was nothing sexual
about it. Those responses, in her view, were “partial acceptance and partial denial.” This
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was concerning because even after 20 years in prison and with treatment, he remained
unable or unwilling to admit the extent of what he did. This does not, she explained, “bode
well for him not committing it again if he doesn’t understand why he did it in the first place.”
Additionally, she noted that research showed that a male perpetrator having a male
victim, such as here, increased the risk. 2
The record also includes Reyes’s written statement given in connection with the
offenses. In it, he admitted to being addicted to sex and marijuana and acting before
thinking. Significantly, he stated, “I believe that when it comes to sex it is an
uncontrollable desire. When I have the thoughts[,] I act before thinking. I believe it is a
mental thing and would like to find some treatment to over come [sic] this.”
Reed also discussed the other sexual offense for which Reyes was convicted. It
occurred shortly after engaging in sexual contact with the ten-year-old male mentioned
above and involved sexual contact with Reyes’s three-year-old daughter. The child told
her mother that Reyes was rubbing his penis on her vagina. Reyes initially told Reed that
he did expose his penis to his daughter after her bath but did so because “he thought it
would be funny.” He denied any contact. At the time of Reyes’s deposition, however, he
admitted to placing his penis on the child’s vagina, having lascivious thoughts, and
pondering boyfriends who will someday engage in similar activity with her. So too did he
proclaim a lack of sex with his partner and his need for sex.
2 She also explained that Reyes had not committed another sexually violent offense against a child
because he has been in prison and does not have access to children. But, he was “still struggling with the
minimization, denial of the offenses themselves”; so, she believed the condition was still present.
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It was concerning to Reed that he engaged in sexual contact with children while
having an adult partner. Simply put, he had “access to an appropriate aged consenting
partner and he’s engaging in sexual acts with children instead.” Further, the behavior
was of import since he moved from offending against a ten-year-old boy to a three-year-
old girl; that indicated escalation. It showed “a change or shift in the severity or the nature
of the offending.” That Reyes continued to minimize and deny the totality of the offenses,
posed another risk factor, according to Reed. One cannot avoid repeating a behavior
when one does not 1) understand its cause, 2) admit to all of it, and 3) determine how to
prevent it.
Other disorders were also diagnosed by Reed. In her opinion, Reyes suffered from
unspecified personality disorder with antisocial and borderline traits. They depicted a
“pattern of problems in how you see yourself, how you relate to others and how you view
the world. So it’s characterological personality pathology that is kind of developed over
the course of your lifetime usually.” In turn, borderline personality disorder involved
unstable or intense interpersonal relationships as well as problems with mood regulation.
Of further concern to her was his 1) history of engaging in other illegal behavior and
convictions thereof, 2) lack of remorse, 3) hesitance to assume responsibility, 4)
impulsivity, and 5) history of aggressiveness.
Reyes’s use of cannabis while committing sexual offenses was also telling to her.
If he relapsed into drug use, his risk level for reoffending would increase. Reyes himself
buttressed this opinion by stating that his marijuana use led to sex addiction. But, he
eschewed treatment because he believed it unnecessary. And, according to the expert,
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despite his receipt of sexual offender treatment, he did not internalize any of it. This was
so because he did not believe he needed such treatment and was not a sex offender.
Reed summarized her opinion concerning Reyes’s having a behavioral
abnormality that makes him likely to engage in a predatory act of sexual violence. She
said:
for him it’s the sexual deviance that we talked about already as well as these
personality disorders. And they play off of each other. So somebody that
has sexually deviant thoughts, fantasies, urges, somebody that has a
personality that allows them to violate others, to violate the rights of others,
to hurt other people and act out in impulsive and at times aggressive ways.
The combination of those two things I thought made up the behavioral
abnormality.
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, we conclude that a
rational juror could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Reyes suffered from a
behavioral abnormality that made him likely to re-engage in a predatory act of sexual
violence. We therefore find that the State presented legally sufficient evidence to support
the jury’s finding. In re Stoddard, 619 S.W.3d at 676 (so defining the legal sufficiency
test). And, considering evidence contradicting the verdict, that evidence is not so
significant that the factfinder could not have determined beyond a reasonable doubt that
the statutory elements were met. Thus, the decision found support in factually sufficient
evidence, as well. Id. (so defining the test for factual sufficiency).
Each issue is overruled, and we affirm the order of the trial court.
Per Curiam
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