UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-6771
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Petitioner - Appellee,
v.
DALE MOREHOUSE,
Respondent - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. W. Earl Britt, Senior
District Judge. (5:14-hc-02180-BR)
Submitted: May 31, 2016 Decided: June 9, 2016
Before KING, THACKER, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, Stephen C. Gordon,
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellant. John Stuart Bruce, Acting United States Attorney, G.
Norman Acker, III, Michael Bredenberg, Assistant United States
Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Dale Morehouse appeals the district court’s order finding
him to be a sexually dangerous person under the Adam Walsh Child
Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (AWCPSA), 18 U.S.C. §§ 4247-
4248 (2012), and civilly committing him to the custody of the
Attorney General. On appeal, Morehouse contends that the
district court clearly erred when it adopted the opinions and
diagnoses offered by three Government experts over contrary
testimony by the two experts he called and evidence that he
refrained from committing any sexual offenses while living in
the community between 1993 and 2001. We affirm the district
court’s order.
Under the AWCPSA, a “sexually dangerous person” may be
civilly committed following the expiration of his federal prison
sentence. 18 U.S.C. § 4248. To obtain a commitment order, the
Government had to demonstrate, by clear and convincing evidence,
that Morehouse
(1) “has engaged or attempted to engage in child
molestation” in the past, 18 U.S.C. § 4247(a)(5); (2)
currently “suffers from a serious mental illness,
abnormality, or disorder”; and (3) as a result of the
illness, abnormality, or disorder, “would have serious
difficulty in refraining from [reoffending] if
released,” 18 U.S.C. § 4247(a)(6).
United States v. Hall, 664 F.3d 456, 461 (4th Cir. 2012)
(ellipsis omitted). The Government satisfies the clear and
convincing evidence standard by presenting “evidence of such
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weight that it produces in the mind of the trier of fact a firm
belief or conviction, without hesitancy, as to the truth of the
allegations sought to be established, [in other words,] evidence
that proves the facts at issue to be highly probable.” Id.
(alteration supplied) (quoting Jimenez v. DaimlerChrysler Corp.,
269 F.3d 439, 450 (4th Cir. 2001)).
Within the context of a civil commitment proceeding, “we
review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and
its legal conclusions de novo.” Id. at 462. “A finding is
‘clearly erroneous’ when although there is evidence to support
it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the
definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.”
Id. (quoting United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S.
364, 395 (1948)). Where a district court’s factual findings
were the result of witness credibility determinations “we give
even greater deference to the trial court’s findings.” Id.
(internal quotation marks omitted). This deference is further
heightened when the credibility determination stems from the
district court’s evaluation of conflicting expert testimony.
Id.
Morehouse concedes that the Government satisfied the first
requirement for commitment, stated in 18 U.S.C. § 4247(a)(5),
but challenges the district court’s determinations that it
satisfied the second and third requirements for commitment,
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stated in 18 U.S.C. § 4247(a)(6). Having reviewed the record we
are not left with the “definite and firm conviction” that the
district court improperly credited the opinions and diagnoses
offered by the three Government experts.
Grounding their diagnoses in the guidelines established by
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th
Edition (DSM-V), the Government’s experts provided the district
court ample basis to conclude that Morehouse suffered from a
“serious mental illness, abnormality, or disorder.” While
Morehouse’s experts disagreed, their opinions were based, in
part, on discounting Morehouse’s self-reporting of sexual
fantasies while in prison. One of Morehouse’s experts
acknowledged that if Morehouse actually experienced the sexual
fantasies he self-reported, such would be indicative of a
“serious mental illness, abnormality, or disorder.” Having
observed Morehouse’s testimony and the conflicting statements of
the various experts regarding the veracity of Morehouse’s self-
reported sexual fantasies, the district court was in the best
position to make a credibility determination as to whether
Morehouse experienced those sexual fantasies. Accordingly, the
district court was also in the best position to determine if the
Government presented clear and convincing evidence that
Morehouse suffers from a “serious mental illness, abnormality,
or disorder.”
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Turning to the third requirement, the Government experts’
reliance on the evaluation criteria from the STABLE 2007, the
Structured Risk Assessment-Forensic Version (SRA-FV), and the
Psychopathy Checklist provided the district court ample basis to
conclude that Morehouse, if released, would have serious
difficulty in refraining from reoffending. In contrast to
Morehouse’s contention that his prior eight years in the
community without committing a sexual offense demonstrated that
he would not have serious difficulty refraining from
reoffending, one of the Government’s experts testified that to
qualify as a protective factor under the SRA-FV manual, an
individual must live in the community for 10 to 15 years without
reoffending. Furthermore, the Government experts provided the
district court a reasonable basis to conclude that Morehouse’s
sexual misconduct in the highly structured environment of
prison, as well as his possession of certain pictures in prison,
were more indicative of the difficulty he would have with
respect to reoffending than was his ability to not reoffend over
10 years earlier. Finally, although Morehouse contends that the
district court placed too much emphasis on his withdrawal from a
sex offender treatment program in prison, this was but one of
many factors relied on by the Government experts and the
district court. Therefore, we are unable to conclude that the
district court clearly erred in finding that Morehouse, if
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released, would have serious difficulty refraining from
reoffending.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s order. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately expressed in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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