People v. Superior Court

Charles Small was scheduled to be released from prison on a Sunday, but the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation kept him in custody so that the People could file a petition to civilly commit him as a sexually violent predator (SVP) under the Sexually Violent Predators Act (the Act; Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6600 et seq.) the following Monday. (All undesignated statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code.) The issue presented is whether the trial court properly dismissed the petition to commit Small under the Act.

We conclude that the trial court properly dismissed the petition because Small was in unlawful custody, the People failed to show that its delay in filing the petition resulted from a good faith mistake of fact or law (§ 6601, subd. (a)(2)) and Code of Civil Procedure section 12a did not extend the time to file the petition.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In 1999, Small was convicted of committing a lewd act upon a nine-year-old child and sentenced to prison for six years. On January 5, 2007, the State Department of Mental Health (Mental Health) received a referral requesting that Small be evaluated under the Act. (All further dates…