Peters v. Superior Court

In Peters v. Superior Court (2000) 79 Cal.App.4th 845, the issue was whether a petition to extend commitment under the former SVPA required a new petition supported by two current mental health evaluations. The court rejected the government's position the original evaluations could "do double duty by supporting both the initial and recommitment petitions. . . . . There is no evidence that either of the authors of the 1996 reports has seen or examined Peters since 1996. Nor is there anything in the record to suggest that the authors of these reports intended that the reports be used in the recommitment process. Finally, the use of potentially stale reports subverts the manifest intent of the SVPA--the state must prove that the party suffers from a currently diagnosed mental disorder which predisposes him to engage in sexually violent criminal behavior." (Id. at p. 850.)