Ragsdale v. Overholser

• Decision Date: 23 June 1960
• Docket Number: No. 15437.,15437.
• Citation: 281 F.2d 943
• Parties: Donald RAGSDALE, Appellant, v. Winfred OVERHOLSER, Superintendent, St. Elizabeths Hospital, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

281 F.2d 943 (1960)

Donald RAGSDALE, Appellant, v. Winfred OVERHOLSER, Superintendent, St. Elizabeths Hospital, Appellee.

No. 15437.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued February 24, 1960.

Decided June 23, 1960.

Petition for Rehearing Denied September 19, 1960.

Mr. Charles W. Halleck, Washington, D. C. (appointed by the District Court), for appellant.

Mr. Harry T. Alexander, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. Oliver Gasch, U. S. Atty., and Carl W. Belcher, Asst. U. S. Atty., were on the brief, for appellee.

Mr. Howard Adler, Jr., Washington, D. C., filed a brief on behalf of American Civil Liberties Union, as amicus curiae.

Before Mr. Justice REED, retired,^* and FAHY and BURGER, Circuit Judges.

Petition for Rehearing En Banc Denied September 19, 1960.

Circuit Judge Bazelon would grant the petition.

BURGER, Circuit Judge.

Appeal at Government expense with court appointed counsel was allowed by order of the District Court to review that court's action dismissing appellant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Petitioner has been confined in St. Elizabeths Hospital under D.C.Code 1951 § 24-301 (Supp. VIII 1960).

On September 17, 1957, appellant, charged with robbery, was found not guilty by reason of insanity. The testimony of three eyewitnesses showed appellant and an accomplice had committed a robbery, armed with guns. Appellant's defense was threefold: that he was somewhere else at the time; that he was intoxicated; that he was insane. The evidence that he had a mental disease was sufficient to go to the jury and the District Court submitted the case on both insanity and intoxication. The history of significant mental aberration goes back some years including irrational conduct while serving in the armed forces from 1952 to 1955. A history of irrational violence toward himself and others was shown.¹

On November 16, 1958, while allowed ground privileges, appellant fled St. Elizabeths Hospital. A warrant for his arrest as a fugitive issued six weeks later but he was not taken into custody for about 10 months.² During this interval the record indicates he worked for several employers without showing abnormal behavior and lived at home with his wife and family.³ Appellant's own testimony would give some support to belief that he has some insight into his own condition and that he has shown some capacity to adjust himself to normal life.

At the hearing on the petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Dr. William G. Cushard said his diagnosis of appellant as of that time was that he had no mental disorder but that he had "sociopathic personality disturbance, anti-social reaction." He testified that this was his individual professional opinion,⁴ which is at odds with the official position of St. Elizabeths Hospital that such a personality disturbance is a mental disease. At appellant's trial in 1957 he testified that appellant was then without mental disease. At the 1959 hearing, in response to a question as to the diagnosis "as of today," he answered: "In my opinion, Your Honor, he still has — this is still the correct diagnosis in his case, and I don't feel that there has been any change in his condition since he was acquitted on the basis of that diagnosis by reason of insanity." Dr. Cushard also testified that no known drugs were effective for treatment of appellant's condition and that "about the only kind of treatment I know for any type of personality disorder is to try to change his personality, and that's a very difficult thing to do, to change a person's basic personality." Asked by the court if he thought they were "making some progress" with the patient, Dr. Cushard answered "No * * *"⁵ but pointed out that he had not examined appellant on his service for over a year, due to a change in his hospital assignment. This witness conceded that his conclusions were based "in part" on a report of Dr. Platkin, another staff psychiatrist.⁶

Dr. Platkin testified that in September 1957, appellant was suffering from "sociopathic personality disturbance, antisocial reaction" and that his diagnosis was the same in 1957 as at the 1959 habeas corpus hearing. He also said appellant was dangerous to others, in view of his history of violence. On one occasion in July 1958, when appellant was afforded ground privileges at St. Elizabeths, he departed without leave, returned and engaged in violent acts which led to confinement in the maximum security quarters.

It was against this background of evidence that the District Court dismissed appellant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus and declined release conditionally or otherwise.

Appellant contends (1) that the evidence does not support the District Court's action and (2) that the statute cannot be applied to appellant because it cannot be said he was acquitted "solely by reason of insanity" and (3) that if applicable to him, § 24-301 is an unconstitutional denial of due process because it requires a mandatory commitment without an affirmative finding or judicial determination that the subject is either insane or dangerous.

1.

We deal first with the contention that the evidence established that appellant was not dangerous or potentially dangerous to himself or others and hence was entitled to relief under his petition. Certain circumstances, if the evidence of appellant was to be believed, suggested that he had been free from symptoms for 10 months. The reports of his employment record and his conduct as described by his wife, are emphasized as showing appellant to be a proper subject for at least conditional release. But the medical evidence is undisputed that appellant is presently suffering from what both experts described as "psychopathic personality disorder," and that he is dangerous.

The mere recital of the evidence demonstrates that the District Court made a permissible choice between expert evidence that appellant was dangerous and other evidence including testimony of laymen tending to suggest he was not. The standards established by this court in Douglas v. United States, 1956, 99 U.S.App.D.C. 232, 239 F.2d 52, as to the relative value of expert and nonexpert evidence of insanity must also govern when the District Court is considering release under § 24-301. See Carter v. United States, 1956, 102 U.S. App.D.C. 227, 252 F.2d 608.

We first dealt with this in Overholser v. Leach, 1958, 103 U.S.App.D.C. 289, 291, 257 F.2d 667, 669, certiorari denied, 1959, 359 U.S. 1013, 79 S.Ct. 1152, 3 L.Ed.2d 1038, where a unanimous court held that the person seeking release has the "burden of showing that the refusal of the superintendent to issue the statutory certificate was arbitrary or capricious." Perhaps more important in its bearing on the instant case was the court's discussion of the civil commitment procedures, which appellant urges as the only appropriate way he can be held; there we said:

"The test of this statute § 24-301 is not whether a particular individual, engaged in the ordinary pursuits of life, is committable to a mental institution under the law governing civil commitments. Cf. Overholser v. Williams, 1958, 102 U.S.App.D.C. 248, 252 F.2d 629. Those laws do not apply here. This statute applies to an exceptional class of people — people who have committed acts forbidden by law, who have obtained verdicts of `not guilty by reason of insanity,\' and who have been committed to a mental institution pursuant to the Code. People in that category are treated by Congress in a different fashion from persons who have somewhat similar mental conditions, but who have not committed offenses or obtained verdicts of not guilty by reason of insanity * * * There must be freedom from such abnormal mental condition as would make the individual dangerous to himself or the community in the reasonably foreseeable future. (Footnotes omitted.)" 103 U.S.App.D.C. at pages 291-292, 257 F.2d at pages 669-670. (Emphasis added.)

The purpose of the mandatory confinement provision is disclosed by its language and legislative history. Prior to Durham v. United States, 1954, 94 U.S. App.D.C. 228, 214 F.2d 862, 45 A.L.R.2d 1430, commitment was discretionary with the trial judge when a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity was returned or directed. After the Durham case Congress promptly amended the statute to make commitment mandatory in all such cases. No penal or punitive considerations enter into this procedure. It has two purposes: (1) to protect the public and the subject; (2) to afford a place and a procedure to rehabilitate and restore the subject as to whom the standards of our society and the rules of law do not permit punishment or accountability.

It is quite possible, as appellant argues, that a person acquitted and then committed under § 24-301 on a charge calling for a maximum sentence of 18 months may be confined in St. Elizabeths for two, five or ten years — or even beyond that. Nothing less is contemplated by the statute and nothing less will fulfill the protective and rehabilitative purposes of the statute. Compare Greenwood v. United States, 1956, 350 U.S. 366, 76 S.Ct. 410, 100 L.Ed. 412.

A secondary, but important factor in the application of this statute is the burden and standard of proof. That the burden is on the person seeking release we made plain in Overholser v. Leach, supra. The standard of proof is not expressly defined in the statute and only partially defined in Leach. The primary purpose of the statute — protection for the public and for the subject — suggests at once that the burden on the petitioner was intended by Congress to be heavy. The statute deals in terms of the "foreseeable future" and calls for both a medical evaluation — the certificate — and a judicial evaluation — the finding, before the subject can be released.

Would the standard of a preponderance of the evidence satisfy the purposes and objectives of Congress? We think not. A person so committed has made himself one of "an...