The Unforgiven

It is impossible to look at him and not ponder the acts to which he pled guilty in 1991. According to police reports and other court documents, sometime between the hours of 3 and 4 a.m. on July 5, 1988, Bryant Troville broke into a modest, one-story house in Tamarac.

He slipped into the bedroom of an 11-year-old boy and woke him up at knifepoint. He warned the boy not to make any noise unless he wanted to die. The two proceeded to the master bedroom, where the boy awoke his parents. Troville bound the father's hands and locked him in the bathroom. He warned that he would kill the boy if his father tried to come out.

Next, Troville awoke the 15- and 17-year-old daughters of the family and ordered them into their parents' bedroom. Troville directed the girls and their mother onto the bed, pulled up their nightshirts, and removed their underwear. He bound all three women.

For the next hour, Troville committed various acts of sexual torture that included raping the youngest daughter, sexually assaulting the other two women, smearing feces and bodily fluids on his victims, and forcing the 11-year-old boy to perform sexual acts on his mother and sisters.

Before departing the household, Troville ordered the boy to sit on the couch and count to 100. He then exited the back door, stopped to wash off his knife with a hose, and pedaled away on his bicycle.

Police targeted Troville as a suspect almost immediately. A Tamarac police officer had stopped him the previous evening in the same area for acting suspiciously. Troville also had a significant criminal history, although he had never been charged with a sex crime. In his brief adult life, Troville had racked up arrests for burglary, trespassing, and a handful of misdemeanors. His juvenile record, although not released, according to court records included arrests for burglary and killing animals.

Almost four weeks after the crimes, Troville was arrested and placed in the county jail. Police recovered a glove and knife that were thought to be used in the crimes from a residence where Troville had been staying. About two months later, he confessed to the crimes.

Sitting now, almost 12 years later, at the South Bay Correctional Facility, Troville insists repeatedly that he had nothing to do with the events of July 5, 1988. "Right now if you showed me a picture of these people, I wouldn't know who they were. I've never seen them, don't know who they are. I wouldn't know them from Adam. From the day I was arrested, I've been trying to show that I'm innocent."

If Troville were your average prisoner, his claims would be just one more jailhouse denial. But in his case they may be tantamount to a life sentence. Because, if he is deemed a sexually violent predator, Troville's release will hinge on his willingness to participate in a rehabilitation scheme. He says he will never do this.

Instead Troville says he may petition the court to withdraw his original guilty plea and insist on a new trial, arguing that if he had known about the Jimmy Ryce Act back in 1991, he never would have accepted his plea agreement. The chance that a judge would grant such a motion?

Highly unlikely.

In Broward County, Norman O'Rourke is the last man who stands between an inmate and a trip through the strange machinations of the Jimmy Ryce Act. O'Rourke is an assistant state attorney with a background in public-corruption trials. When the Jimmy Ryce Act became law, he was tapped to handle all of the cases because of his past experience with civil litigation.

O'Rourke's fifth-floor office at the Broward County Courthouse is littered with files bearing the names of sex offenders. He currently has a dozen cases: hundreds of pages of depositions and psychiatrists' reports filled with the depraved details of rapes and murders and acts of pedophilia. "You don't come in here and go 'Wow, how uplifting,' when you read one of these files," O'Rourke notes dryly.

The process by which a case file ends up in O'Rourke's office is legally unique, though not particularly complicated. Up to a year before an inmate with a history of sex crimes is slated to be released from jail, the Department of Corrections (or in a few cases, the Department of Juvenile Justice; or a hospital, for those adjudicated not guilty by reason of insanity) will notify the Department of Children and Family Services (DCF). At this point the DCF will initiate a review of the inmate's criminal and mental history. A panel of at least two in-house psychologists will look over court files, psychological profiles, and prison records. If it is decided after this initial review that the inmate is not a sexually violent predator, then the case is immediately dismissed.

If there is deemed sufficient evidence that an inmate falls within the law's parameters for detention, a psychiatrist is dispatched to conduct a face-to-face evaluation with the inmate. Generally a second in-person assessment will be conducted as well. These reports are then sent back to the DCF and reviewed by the in-house panel. The group then decides whether to dismiss the case or forward it on to the appropriate state attorney's office with a recommendation that the inmate be classified as a sexually violent predator and face a civil trial. This is where O'Rourke comes in: He has the final yea or nay as to who gets snagged under the Jimmy Ryce Act.