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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 9-136 / 07-0188
Filed April 22, 2009


IN RE THE DETENTION OF
PAUL MICHAEL BLAISE

PAUL MICHAEL BLAISE,
Respondent-Appellant/Cross-Appellee.

STATE OF IOWA,
Petitioner-Appellee/Cross-Appellant.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Lee (North) County, Michael J. Schilling, Judge.

Paul Michael Blaise appeals from his civil commitment as a sexually violent predator, and the State cross-appeals from the district court.s order granting Blaise a new trial.  GRANT OF NEW TRIAL AFFIRMED.

Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, Steven L. Addington, Assistant Public Defender, and Greta Truman, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant/cross appellee.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Elisabeth S. Reynoldson, Assistant Attorney General, and Becky Goettsch, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee/cross-appellant State.

Heard by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Doyle and Mansfield, JJ.
DOYLE, J.  Paul Michael Blaise appeals from his civil commitment as a sexually violent predator, and the State cross-appeals from the district court.s order granting Blaise a new trial.  Upon our review, we affirm on both appeals.
I.  Background Facts and Proceedings.
Paul Blaise has a long history of sexually aberrant behavior, going back as early as 1989.  He was convicted of sexual abuse in the third degree in 1991 after abusing a nine-year-old girl and was sentenced to a ten-year term of imprisonment.  After his release, he was in and out of jail and prison for a variety of offenses, including sexually related offenses.  Even while incarcerated, Blaise was unable to contain his sexual deviance and sexual assault threats, and as a result, he received numerous disciplinary reports for sexual misconduct.  On October 17, 2005, less than six months after his latest release from jail, Blaise was picking up cans in a Fort Madison park when he approached a stranger and began talking to her.  He asked the woman several inappropriate questions about sex.  Additionally, he asked the woman if she would perform various sexual acts if someone threatened her with a gun.  The woman became frightened and contacted the police, and Blaise was arrested shortly thereafter in the park while in possession of a gun.  He pleaded guilty to first-degree harassment and was sentenced to a two-year term of imprisonment.
On October 16, 2006, while Blaise was serving his sentence for the harassment offense, the State filed a petition alleging Blaise was a sexually violent predator under Iowa Code chapter 229A (2005).  Among other things, the petition alleged that Blaise.s 2005 harassment offense was a sexually motivated
offense.  Thereafter, the district court found probable cause, and trial to a jury commenced on January 8, 2007.  The morning of trial, Blaise.s counsel made the following record:  Your Honor, [at] the pretrial conference that we held last week, I asked the court to bifurcate this matter and I again am requesting the court bifurcate the trial.  I believe that the first issue that the . . . jury has to decide is a factual issue of whether [Blaise.s 2005 harassment offense] was a sexually violent offense.  [Blaise] was charged with harassment and it.s the State.s burden to prove that that was a sexually violent offense in accordance with 229A of the Iowa Code.  Because that does not require his entire background, it does not require we go into detail about all past criminal acts or other matters, it would be superfluous to it in fact prejudice that one fact, we would ask that the jury decide that issue first and then we.d continue with the same jury and then go on to the other issues.  That would be the fairest way to proceed in this matter.  The State resisted, arguing essentially that the same evidence would be used to show that the 2005 harassment offense was a sexually motivated offense and that Blaise was a sexually violent predator, and thus bifurcating the trial would not hold any purpose or have any effect but to drag out the trial.  The district court overruled Blaise.s motion, finding the request to be untimely and that there was no authority for the court to bifurcate the trial.  The trial then proceeded.
At trial, the State called its expert witness psychologist Joseph Belanger, Ph.D., to testify.  At the time of trial, Dr. Belanger was employed by the North Dakota Department of Human Services as a forensic psychologist.  His work consisted predominantly of performing evaluations for

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