A Cook County judge found probable cause Thursday that convicted child molester Richard Bailey likely will molest again and ordered him to stand trial, making Bailey the first Cook County criminal to be held under the state’s new sexual predator law.
The ruling by Chief Criminal Courts Judge Thomas Fitzgerald came during a probable cause hearing to determine if Bailey–a thrice convicted sexual offender who has confessed to abusing more than 400 victims–is a sexually violent person.
Bailey, who just finished serving seven years for abusing six boys, became the fourth person in the state ordered to stand trial under the Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act. Under the law, which went into effect Jan. 1, the state must show the offenders are likely to rape, molest or assault again.
The Supreme Court has ruled such laws are constitutional only if convicts are detained for treatment rather than for extended punishment. Illinois state officials are rushing to put together their treatment program now.
Bailey, a slender man with graying hair, must now undergo a state-ordered psychiatric evaluation. If medical experts determine he is likely be a repeat offender, the state will go to court to have him committed.
Prosecutors Thursday rested their case, in part, on Bailey’s history: he just finished his third prison term for abusing children, most recently on a 1989 conviction for raping three youths and videotaping the assaults.
Also central to the state’s case was the testimony of Dr. Gerald Burgener, a prison psychologist who diagnosed Bailey as a pedophile who suffers from anti-social personality disorder.
Burgener testified Thursday that he believes Bailey will abuse again, due to his “repeated sexual actions with children and his continued urges about having sex with children.”
Burgener said that Bailey, while imprisoned, kept pictures in his locker of two children that he “frequently used for deviant fantasies.” He said Bailey also wrote a novel about a child being abducted and penned articles for Highlights, a children’s magazine.
“He did not have any empathy or remorse for his criminal behavior,” Burgener testified.
Abandoned by his mother as a young child, Bailey began molesting when he was 16 years old, according to the psychologist. He said Bailey has never had a long-term relationship with an adult and did not have a healthy connection to his mother.
Burgener also testified that Bailey did not perform well in other prison treatment programs: he was kicked out of a program at the Big Muddy River Correctional Center in 1996 for writing letters to children.
“I think it is highly likely that he will participate in sex offending behavior again,” Burgener said.
But on cross-examination by defense attorney David Thomas, Burgener softened his portrayal of Bailey. He agreed that Bailey told him during the evaluation that he wanted to reform himself.
“When you asked him if he felt bad, he said `yes’ because the victims will never recover. He said they are insecure and that they had bad dreams and don’t trust adults,” Thomas said.
Burgener agreed.
“He told you he would never molest again for any price; that he wouldn’t break any kind of state law again,” Thomas said.
Burgener consented.
Thomas, with agreement from Burgener, said Bailey was a Jehovah’s Witness who was waiting to be reinstated as a minister and who wanted to teach the Bible.
Bailey did not take the stand during the hearing.
Thursday’s probable cause hearing–which had been postponed twice for legal and logistical reasons–was a lesson in the problems of implementing a new law.
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Defense attorney Thomas repeatedly assailed the act, questioning its constitutionality and attacking its wording. Even Judge Fitzgerald, who proceeded deliberately with every ruling, called the statute “quite confusing” and said he “found very little plain language” in it.
Thomas argued that his client should have been allowed to refuse to answer questions during Burgener’s evaluation, or that he should have been allowed to have an attorney present. At Thomas’ behest, Fitzgerald agreed to let Bailey’s own handpicked psychiatrist observe his next state-ordered psychiatric evaluation.
Attorneys for the state plan to review 1,000 sex offenders this year, with predictions to seek court orders for about 100 of those individuals.