Green v. United States

• Decision Date: 01 July 1965
• Docket Number: No. 18176.,18176.
• Parties: Lawrence W. GREEN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

121 US App. DC 226, 349 F.2d 203 (1965)

Lawrence W. GREEN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 18176.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued December 7, 1964.

Decided July 1, 1965.

Mr. Thomas G. Shack, Jr., Washington, D. C., appointed by the District Court, for appellant.

Mr. Frank Q. Nebeker, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. David C. Acheson, U. S. Atty., and Alan Kay and Joseph A. Lowther, Asst. U. S. Attys., were on the brief, for appellee.

Before BAZELON, Chief Judge, and FAHY, WASHINGTON, DANAHER, BASTIAN,^* WRIGHT, and McGOWAN, Circuit Judges, sitting en banc.

BAZELON, Chief Judge:

This appeal presents an unusual situation — a patient opposing release from St. Elizabeths Hospital.

In 1961 our appellant was found not guilty by reason of insanity on robbery charges and committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital. D.C.CODE § 24-301(d). While still under this commitment, he eloped and perpetrated crimes for which he was convicted in 1963. After this conviction, the Government applied to the District Court for an order for his unconditional release from the Hospital. Appellant's sentence would then be served in prison rather than in a hospital. The appeal from that conviction was decided by this court on June 23, 1965, Green v. United States, No. 17841, 122 U.S.App.D.C. ___, 351 F.2d 198. In the present appeal, we consider the District Court's order granting the Government's motion for unconditional release, and denying the independent mental examination which appellant had requested in aid of his opposition to release.

The initial question is whether Green has standing to appeal the District Court's order. Because the statute governing release describes the roles of the prosecuting authority and the court, but not the patient,¹ it might be said that the patient has no cognizable interest in opposing his release. No doubt the principal concern of the statute is for procedures to protect the public from the premature release of dangerous persons. But there may be circumstances in which a patient may have bona fide fears that his release will endanger himself or the community to which he is being released. We think the court may consider such circumstances on the issue of release and its determination is reviewable on appeal.

Nor do we think that standing is diminished where, as here, release is to a prison rather than to the community at large. While the change between hospital and prison environment may be different from the change between the hospital and unsupervised personal liberty, either change could be traumatic to a mental patient; and he may be dangerous to fellow-prisoners as well as to fellow-workers, families, and the public. Moreover, we think a patient has a cognizable interest in securing the medical treatment which commitment is intended to assure. Here, counsel for Green suggested that the recommendation of release did not rest on an impartial judgment based solely on medical data, as Congress intended, but rather on the Hospital's desire to relieve its embarrassment for having transferred from maximum security a man who later escaped and committed criminal acts. On the facts to be related, the possibility that such non-medical factors influenced decision is real enough to require inquiry in the public interest.

We turn now to the merits of this appeal. After Green's 1961 commitment to St. Elizabeths, he eventually obtained ground privileges and on more than one occasion left the Hospital without authorization. During one of these escapes, he was arrested for the robbery involved in the recent appeal, No. 17841. He was not returned to the Hospital, however, until a motion was made for mental examination. And, when that examination had been completed, on February 15, 1963, the Hospital did not continue custody under the 1961 commitment, but returned Green to the United States Marshal to await trial. On April 18, 1963, two weeks after Green had been convicted in No. 17841 and two months after conclusion of the examination, the Hospital recommended release from the 1961 commitment. The Hospital had no more information then than on February 15, but offered no reason for the delay.

After several delays due to withdrawal of Green's assigned counsel, the Government's motion for release was called for hearing in August 1963. An independent psychiatric examination was requested and denied. Before any evidence was presented, the Assistant United States Attorney asserted that "this defendant is playing fast and loose with this Court," and the court agreed that "he is trying to." Thereupon the hearing commenced, with the Government calling the only witness, Dr. Owens of St. Elizabeths staff.

Dr. Owens testified that he had not been able to see Green since Green was returned to the Hospital in early May 1963. Although Green had refused to see him, Owens said attendants reported "no abnormal symptoms or signs of behavior since he has been back to the hospital," other than refusals to see him. Dr. Owens admitted that he didn't know the reasons for Green's refusal to see him, and that the purpose for the February examination, when he had seen Green last, was to determine whether there was mental illness, rather than fitness for release. Thus it was established that there had been no psychiatric inquiry directed particularly to Green's fitness for release, and that the most recent diagnostic inquiry for any purpose was six months distant. Only Dr. Owens' asserted belief that Green was "acting up" because he desired to avoid release, and not because he was ill,² undercut the possibility that Green's concern for the place of his confinement was genuine.

At the hearing's close, Green asked to address the court and was allowed to do so. He launched into a bizarre and apparently irrational harangue. He stated, for example, that he was a citizen of Paris, France; although he had opposed release and sought the hearing on the Hospital's recommendation, he said that his purpose in court was to be transferred away from the "slave house" at St. Elizabeths to a federal penal institution. The court took no action except to tell Green to confine his remarks to the subject of the hearing and, eventually, to be quiet or be held in contempt. The court thereupon determined that appellant was fit for unconditional release.

The foregoing raises a serious doubt that the Hospital's recommendation for release was based upon adequate medical data. The unexplained delays and failure to obtain new diagnostic information are unhappily consistent with the possibility that the recommendation was based on the guilty verdict alone. At least after Green's courtroom appearance, the need for medical data should have been clear. Counsel had suggested the possibility that the Hospital was acting through embarrassment rather than medical judgment as one ground supporting his request for an independent psychiatric examination. It is unnecessary to agree...