Phyle v. Duffy

• Citation: 334 U.S. 431,92 L.Ed. 1494,68 S.Ct. 1131
• Decision Date: 07 June 1948
• Docket Number: No. 655,655
• Parties: PHYLE v. DUFFY
• Court: United States Supreme Court

334 U.S. 431

68 S.Ct. 1131

92 L.Ed. 1494

PHYLE

v DUFFY.

No. 655.

Argued April 20, 21, 1948.

Decided June 7, 1948.

Rehearing Denied June 21, 1948.

Mr. Morris Lavine, of Los Angeles, Cal., for petitioner.

Mr. Clarence Alinn, of San Francisco, Cal., for respondent.

Mr. Justice BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

The petitioner is under sentence of death for murder in the first degree imposed by a California superior court and affirmed by the State Supreme Court. People v. Phyle, 28 Cal.2d 671, 171 P.2d 428. The validity of that sentence is not here challenged.¹ But § 1367 of the California Penal Code provides that 'A person cannot be tried, adjudged to punishment, or punished for a public offense, while he is insane.' Thus if petitioner is insane, California law prohibits his execution under the death sentence which he received. The legal questions here presented relate to the procedures adopted by California to determine whether petitioner is sane or insane as a matter of fact.

It is petitioner's contention that, though having been pronounced insane in a judicial proceeding after his conviction, and though he in fact is still insane, he is about to be execute because a state doctor, acting under authority of state statutes, has declared him restored to sanity. The doctor reached his determination without notice or hearings, and without any opportunity on petitioner's part to obtain an orginal court hearing and adjudication of his sanity, or even to obtain a court review of the doctor's conclusion that he is sane. This procedure it is argued constitutes a denial to petitioner of that due process of law guaranteed him by the Fourteenth Amendment.

This contention was urged upon the California Supreme Court in habeas corpus proceedings there instituted. That court entertained and considered the petition, but, with two judges dissenting, denied relief, sustaining the validity of the power of the state's executive agents to follow the prescribed statutory procedures. In re Phyle, 30 Cal.2d 838, 843, 186 P.2d 134. We granted certiorari because of the serious nature of the due process contentions presented in the petition. 333 U.S. 841, 68 S.Ct. 656. Here the California attorney general, while supporting the State Supreme Court's denial of habeas corpus, asserts that California affords petitioner an adequate judicial remedy by way of mandamus, a procedure which has not yet been sought by petitioner.

The California procedure may perhaps be better understood by explaining the application of the controlling California statutes to petitioner's case. While he was in prison awaiting execution of the death sentence a question arose concerning the petitioner's sanity at that time. Section 3701 of the State Penal Code² prescribes that if 'there is good reason to believe' that a defendant under sentence of death 'has become insane, the warden must call such fact to the attention of the district attorney.' It is the district attorney's 'duty' immediately to institute proceedings in an appropriate trial court to determine the sanity of the defendant, and the court 'must at once' summon a jury of twelve to 'hear such inquiry.' In petitioner's case this prescribed course was followed, a judicial hearing was held as provided by § 3702,³ and petitioner was adjudged insane. In accordance with § 3703⁴ the court then ordered that petitioner 'be taken to a state hospital for the insane and be there kept in safe confinement until his reason is restored.' It will be noted that the petitioner obtained a judicial hearing as to sanity only because the warden instituted proceedings after determining that there was 'good reason to believe' that the petitioner was insane. Thus, the opportunity for a person under sentence of death to have a hearing before judge and jury on the question of his sanity depends in the first instance solely on the warden.

After adjudication of insanity the petitioner was taken to a state hospital for the insane in compliance with the trial court's order of commitment. In accordance with § 3704⁵ the warden then suspended the death sen- tence and delivered certified copies of the court's order to the governor and to the medical superintendent of the state hospital to which petitioner was sent. As § 3704 provides, the superintendent was directed that when petitioner 'recovers his reason,' the superintendent 'must certify that fact' to the governor, who is then required to issue to the warden his warrant appointing a day for the execution of the judgment. The warden then returns the defendant to the State prison pending the execution of the judgment. This course was followed with reference to the petitioner. Eighteen days after his admission to the state hospital the medical superintendent certified to the governor that the petitioner was then sane. He was returned to the custody of the prison warden, and the governor set a new date for his execution.

The medical superintendent's determination of petitioner's sanity was based on his own ex parte investigation, no notice or hearings having been afforded petitioner or any person on his behalf. It is thus clear that the California statutory scheme here challenged provides neither an administrative nor a judicial hearing as a prerequisite to a determination that a condemned defendant judicially adjudicated to be insane has been restored to sanity; one man in an ex parte investigation decides the question upon which hangs the defendant's life, in the absence of a later request by the prison warden for a judicial hearing on the ground that there is then 'reason to believe' the defendant has become insane.

The holding of the State Supreme Court in habeas corpus proceeding was: 'There is no authority * * * for the proposition that defendant has a right to habeas corpus or other judicial proceeding to determine the question of his sanity after his release from the state hospital. In fact section 3700 of the Penal Code⁶ expressly prohibits such a proceeding. Once the superintendent certifies that defendant is sane, he is remanded to the custody of the warden for execution and 'No judge, court, or officer other than the Governor' can then suspend the execution of the judgment, 'except the warden of the State prison to whom he is delivered * * *." In re Phyle, 30 Cal.2d at page 842, 843, 186 P.2d at page 137.

For the statements in its opinion that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment conferred no right on a condemned defendant to any kind of judicial adjudication or review on the question of sanity, the State Supreme Court primarily relied on Nobles v. Georgia, 168 U.. 398, 18 S.Ct. 87, 42 L.Ed. 515. We do not think that either the actual holding or what was said in the opinion in that case would necessarily require a rejection of the contentions made here against the California procedures.

The Georgia law under scrutiny in the Nobles case provided that the sanity of a person previously condemned to death should be determined by a tribunal formed in the following manner: 'The Sheriff of the county, with concurrence and assistance of the Ordinary thereof, (emphasis added) shall summon a jury of twelve men to inquire into such insanity * * *.' Code 1882, § 4666. If this tribunal found insanity the sheriff was required to suspend execution of sentence and report his action to the presiding judge. Restoration of sanity so as to justify execution was to be determined by the presiding judge 'by inquisition or otherwise.' Thus 'the only question' in the Nobles case, as the Court there said, was 'whether * * * in order to constitute due process of law' the question of insanity of a condemned defendant must 'be tried by a jury in a judicial proceeding surrounded by all the safeguards and requirements of a commonlaw jury trial, and even although by the state law full and adequate administrative and quasi judicial process is created for the purpose of investigating the suggestion.' 168 U.S. at page 405, 18 S.Ct. at page 90, 42 L.Ed. 515. This agency for a hearing to inquire into the prisoner's sanity, composed as it was of sheriff, county judge and jury, was referred to as an 'apt and special tribunal.' There is provision in the California statutes for a hearing before a judge and jury when, but only when, the warden is of opinion that there 'is reason to believe' a defendant is insane.

The Nobles case does stand for the proposition that a condemned defendant has no 'absolute right' to a hearing on the question of his sanity on his mere 'suggestion.' Such an absolute right, this Court thought, would make the punishment of a defendant 'depend solely upon his fecundity in making suggestion after suggestion of insanity, to be followed by trial upon trial.' 168 U.S. at page 406, 18 S.Ct. at page 90, 42 L.Ed. 515. For this reason, the Court in the Nobles opinion cited and quoted from legal commentators and from judicial opinions which emphasized, as the opinion in the Nobles case itself emphasized, the importance of leaving to the 'discretion of a judge' the most appropriate procedure for determining the sanity of a defendant already sentenced to death. It was in this connection that the Court made the statemen in the Nobles case upon which the California Supreme Court particularly relied, that 'the manner in which such question should be determined was purely a matter of legislative regulation.'

Reading this statement in its context and in relation to the Georgia procedure, we do not understand that the Court in the Nobles case passed upon the question here urged: whether a state which bars the execution of insane persons can submit to a single individual this question, crucial to life, to be decided by that individual ex parte, with or without notice and hearings as the individual may choose, and without any judicial supervision, control or review whatever. The Nobles case we do understand to be an authority for the principle that a condemned defendant...