A convicted serial rapist being evaluated for possible release will not face legal sanctions for destroying personal journals that described his violent sexual fantasies.
A state Supreme Court appeals panel ruled Wednesday that Thomas Duvall, 58, was under no legal obligation to retain his personal journals after the state approved his petition for provisional discharge in 2013. Duvall kept the journals, or "fantasy logs," as part of his therapy at the state sex offender treatment center in St. Peter.
The decision not to sanction Duvall, who sexually assaulted teenage girls in the 1970s and 1980s, is a victory for civilly committed sex offenders and their advocates, who have argued that offenders should be allowed to document their inner thoughts and experiences for therapeutic purposes without fear that their writings could be used against them in court.
The ruling also deals a blow to efforts by Attorney General Lori Swanson's office, which opposes Duvall's conditional release, to portray him as dishonest and untrustworthy. Swanson's office alleges that Duvall lied about the timing and circumstances of his destruction of the fantasy logs in an attempt to hide violent and deviant thoughts that might prevent his release.
Responding to the ruling, a spokesman for the Attorney General said Duvall had a history of using "brutal force and deceit" to overpower his victims. In 1987, just 12 days after he was released from prison, Duvall tied up a 17-year-old girl with an electrical cord and repeatedly raped her while hitting her with a hammer. The girl had let Duvall into her apartment after he asked to use the phone.
"We continue to be deeply troubled that Mr. Duvall destroyed these records because we believe they are highly relevant to his need for commitment and to public safety," the spokesman said.
The Duvall case has become a politically charged flash point in the debate over the future of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP), which confines about 690 rapists, pedophiles and other offenders in prisonlike treatment centers in St. Peter and Moose Lake.
The state faces a quandary. It is under mounting legal pressure from a federal judge to show that MSOP is a viable system for treating and releasing offenders. If no one completes treatment, the program can be struck down as unconstitutional for depriving offenders — who have already served their prison time — of their due process rights. However, when special review panels approve offenders for conditional release, details of their horrific crimes surface and elected officials get cold feet for fear of being attacked as soft on crime and insensitive to sexual assault survivors.