Shields

Jimmy Shields has been committed to the custody of the state Department of Mental Health as a sexually violent predator (SVP) since 2001. In 2005, the People filed a petition to recommit Shields. The petition was granted, and Shields was committed for an indeterminate term. Shields challenges this commitment order.

Shields’s challenge is based on an amendment to Welfare and Institutions Code section 6604, which changed the term of commitment for an SVP from a two-year term to an indeterminate term. Shields asserts the court had no jurisdiction to find him to be an SVP and recommit him because section 6604’s two-year commitment procedure has been eliminated and the amended SVP statute fails to expressly refer to persons already confined for two-year terms under former section 6604. We reject this contention because Shields’s proposed statutory interpretation is contrary to the clear legislative intent. The commitment order is affirmed.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

After repeated instances of predatory sexual conduct, in 2001 Shields was found to be an SVP and committed to a two-year period of confinement as authorized under former section 6604. The commitment was…