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In Re Commitment of Seth Hill,

In a civil commitment proceeding, a jury found Seth Hill to be a sexually violent predator. During voir dire, the trial court directed Hill's attorney not to ask a direct question about Hill's alleged homosexuality. Hill's attorney then attempted to ask the panel whether, if the state proved that Hill had committed two or more violent sexual offenses, the potential jurors would convict Hill based on that evidence alone or would also require the state to prove the statute's second element -- that Hill had a behavioral abnormality predisposing him to commit such acts. The state objected to this line of questioning, calling Hill's questions improper commitment questions, and the trial court sustained the objection. The trial court abused its discretion in rejecting these two lines of permissible questioning. The court reverses the trial court's judgment and remands for a new trial. Texas Supreme Court, No. 10-0280, 03-11-2011.

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A party selecting jurors for trial must be given latitude to intelligently use its peremptory challenges to seat a jury that, to the greatest extent possible, is free from bias. Here, because the trial court refused to allow two permissible lines of questioning, we reverse the court of appeals’ judgment upholding the trial court’s ruling and remand this case for a new trial.

This is an appeal from a civil commitment proceeding in which a jury found Seth Hill to be a sexually violent predator. See TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ch. 841 (providing for the civil commitment of certain violent sexual offenders). The State had the burden to prove that Hill (1) was a “repeat sexually violent offender” and (2) “suffer[ed] from a behavioral abnormality” that made him “likely to engage in a predatory act of sexual violence.” Id. § 841.003. As such, much of Hill’s trial focused on his sexual history, which formed the basis for the State’s expert witness’s conclusion that Hill suffered from a behavioral abnormality. During its pretrial deposition of Hill, the State explored Hill’s sexual activity with other inmates in an all-male facility. In the deposition, Hill admitted to these acts. The State’s expert testified at trial that “if somebody has heterosexual preferences and then they later begin practicing homosexual acts, it infers that there is an instability within their personality which again, is more evidence of why I diagnosed [Hill] with a personality disorder.”

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