The lawyer for former Governor George Pataki told a jury on Tuesday that the due process rights of six sex offenders were not violated when, on the brink of their release from prison, they were civilly committed to a psychiatric institution without notice or hearings. Abbe Lowell, Pataki's partner at Chadbourne & Parke, told an eight-person jury before Southern District Judge Jed Rakoff that Pataki was responding to a crisis when he launched the Sexual Violent Predator Initiative in 2005, and that he had no intention to harm the prisoners and hadn't "acted maliciously or with reckless disregard for the law."
The case, Lowell said, was "about money" as the plaintiffs are seeking tens of millions in damages for being committed when they could have been committed civilly after their release from prison anyway. Assistant Attorney General Barbara Hathaway sounded the same theme in her opening, saying there was "no harm, no foul" and, "This case is about one thing—protecting the people of the state of New York, especially children" from predators. Hathaway asked the jury not to reward the plaintiffs, as their confinement was also about "getting people the help they need."
