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NOTE: This story contains explicit details of sexual violence.

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A hearing to consider whether to release a sexually violent predator to a house on the outskirts of Manila was continued this morning to give the California Department of State Hospitals (DSH) time to review hundreds of pages of public opposition. The new hearing date was scheduled for July.

And in a surprise twist, there will also be a hearing later this month to review an allegation that the convicted serial rapist, Richard Stobaugh, was found in possession of child pornography while at Coalinga State Hospital in 2018. Deputy District Attorney Whitney Timm today said Stobaugh concealed that fact from the DHS treatment team that recommended his release.

In a courtroom packed to the gills, with more people standing outside in hopes that someone might vacate their seat, Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Kaleb Cockrum found that the District Attorney’s Office missed the deadline to consolidate and submit its records of public feedback to the DSH.

He ordered the placement hearing to be continued to July 14, while the hearing regarding the alleged possession of child pornography was scheduled for May 21.

Cockrum did not allow public participation via Zoom, explaining that the court can’t control written messages between participants nor prevent offensive gestures and messages. “I’ve even experienced nudity,” he said, adding that he reserved space for news media to ensure public access to court proceedings.

At the outset of the day’s hearing, Cockrum gave a lengthy overview of Stobaugh’s criminal history and outlined the competing rights at play in these proceedings, which pit liberty against tyranny. He also noted there is “a lot of anger and a lot of fear [and] a lot of misinformation” regarding the case. 

“I can’t address or or take away all of the anger and fear, but I can address the misinformation,” he said. 

Noting that Stobaugh is a sexually violent predator, the judge ran through the “horrible, violent, unconscionable things” on his rap sheet: In 1981 he broke into a dorm room and raped a woman in her teens; in 1987 he kidnapped, raped, orally copulated and sodomized a 25-year-old woman; in 1988 he was convicted after he bound and raped a pregnant woman and also raped a 71-year-old woman.

Stobaugh has now served his entire prison time for those crimes, and the court has no authority to remand him back there, Cockrum explained.

In 2012 the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office successfully petitioned to have him committed to the state hospital, where he remained for over a decade. At a hearing in December 2023, expert witnesses for both the defense and the prosecution testified that Stobaugh had made sufficient progress in his treatment and could be safely released into the community under conditions of strict supervision.

A doctor serving as a witness for the DA’s office at that 2023 hearing said that while Stobaugh remained a sexually violent predator, his age reduced the likelihood of offense as there was “a natural decline in aggression and psychopathy.”

A doctor testifying for the defense said that, upon his release, Stobaugh would be monitored through GPS 24/7, with “exclusion zones” that he could not enter; he’d be required to check in regularly with a regional coordinator and a team of caseworkers; he’d need to attend weekly group and individual therapy sessions; he’d have to take at least four polygraph tests per year; all of his electronic devices would be monitored with software that tracks keystrokes and images; and he’d have to register as a sex offender.

Cockrum said that, with no evidence submitted to the contrary, the law required him to find that conditional release was appropriate, and so the petition for his release was granted.

“The law now says that Mr. Stobaugh has a right to liberty,” Cockrum said. “This is a fundamental due process right. If I were to hold him in the hospital without legal backing, if I were to send them to prison with no new law violations, that is a violation of due process. That is tyranny.”

But the judge said he also has to ensure that the public will be adequately protected. “I take your rights just as seriously,” he said, and he promised to take community input before approving, modifying or rejecting the state hospital’s recommendations.

“Mr. Stobaugh cannot remain in jail forever,” he said. “The community also has to be adequately protected. That’s what these hearings are about. This is no small issue. This goes to the core of what it means to be a human being. I take it very seriously.”

The  DSH’s Conditional Release Program, called CONREP, was tasked with finding a place for Stobaugh in his home county of Humboldt, and the landlord of the proposed property — at 2171 Peninsula Drive in Manila — was the first person willing to rent to CONREP for this purpose.

As for the public’s right to be heard, Cockrum said that, contrary to the initial call to action issued by Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal, the court cannot received direct emails or letters from the public — in this or any other case. Instead, per the state’s Welfare and Institutions Code 6609.1, all communication with the court must go through the DA’s Office.

Jane Hu, the attorney representing the DSH, said her department needs more time to review the “voluminous” community and agency comments that have been submitted thus far, as does Liberty Healthcare, the corporation that contracts with the state to provide outpatient treatment and supervision for people like Stobaugh.

State code requires such comments to be submitted with at least 10 days notice before a hearing like today’s. However, the Humboldt County DA’s Office turned over some 350 pages of agency comments just yesterday, Hu said. Those comments need to be consolidated and responded to, and they may prompt the state to modify its recommendations for the conditions of Stobaugh’s release. Therefore, her agency requested at least 30 days to provide an updated response to the court.

Public Defender Luke Brownfield said Stobaugh has no objection to that request. But Deputy District Attorney Whitney Timm, who was joined at the prosecutor table by DA Stacey Eads, said the prosecution was ready to proceed today. She started arguing that there was an altogether different reason why the DSH wanted to continue the hearing, but Cockrum cut her off, saying, “We’re gonna get to that.”

First, he found that the DA’s Office failed to comply with the legal timeline for turning over public comments, and he chastised the DA’s Office for the way it has filed some of those documents. There were duplicate emails, for example, but far more seriously, he said, the DA’s Office submitted 10 pages of confidential victims’ testimony that now needs to be excised from the public record.

Timm said her office continues to get public feedback, so a certain amount of duplication is to be expected, and then she dropped the bombshell: The real reason the DSH is requesting a continuance, she said, is because Stobaugh failed to disclose to his treatment team that in 2018, while confined under supervision at Coalinga State Hospital, he’d been found in possession of child pornography.

“They had a hard drive that had a number of images of young children in a pornographic manner,” Timm said, adding that when she mentioned this separately to a DSH evaluator and to doctors with Liberty Healthcare, none of them had heard about this.

“Mr. Stobaugh didn’t disclose it to anyone,” Timm said. She alleged that the DSH actually wants the continuance so they can check in with Stobaugh’s treatment team and conduct a new polygraph test. Timm also said that during a 2019 polygraph test, Stobaugh had “significant reactions” to questions about having sexual thought about minors and forcible sex acts.

“At this point, the court should not grant the motion to continue,” Timm said. “Liberty CONREP and the Department of State Hospitals should be withdrawing their agreement that Mr. Stobaugh is appropriate for conditional release. He can’t even be supervised appropriately in state hospital. What makes them think he could be supervised in our community?”

“I think that would take another hearing,” Cockrum replied.

Brownfield said these matters have already been litigated, and no evidence has been presented to prove that Stobaugh possessed child pornography. Hu, meanwhile, said state medical privacy laws prevent the DSH from speaking publicly about patient treatment or supervision.

Cockrum said he has “grave concerns” about the child porn issue, and the court must prioritize public safety while allowing the least restrictive appropriate placement to the defendant. However, he noted that Timm’s questions on the matter don’t amount to evidence, so whether Stobaugh’s “contraband” was, in fact, child pornography remains “an open issue.”

Still, he noted that neither Hu nor anyone else at the DSH has denied that they are investigating whether that contraband was child pornography, whether he’s been treated for it and whether he’s been truthful in his polygraphs. 

“[I]f it is child pornography, the court has to consider a whole new class of victims,” Cockrum said.

A number of community members had signed up to address the court during today’s hearing, but the judge said he wouldn’t allow it today since the hearing was being rescheduled. There will be one public comment period per placement hearing, and there may only be one placement hearing, Cockrum said.

Before adjourning, the judge said that in addition to addressing the child pornography matter, the DSH should plan to address concerns raised by community members, including: one, that a planned rails-to-trails project would create a public pathway near the Manila house; two, that since Manila experiences frequent power outages there needs to be an alternate plan for monitoring Stobaugh; and three, that elementary school children frequently recreate at a nearby park and take field trips to the Humboldt Coastal Nature Center across the street.

The people who’d packed into the courtroom slowly filed out, with some grumbling about not being able to say their piece.