Chase v. Kearns

• Decision Date: 02 June 1971
• Citation: 278 A.2d 132
• Court: Maine Supreme Court
• Parties: Charles H. CHASE v. William F. KEARNS, Jr., Commissioner, Department of Mental Health and Corrections.

Page 132

278 A.2d 132

Charles H. CHASE v. William F. KEARNS, Jr., Commissioner, Department of Mental Health and Corrections.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

June 2, 1971.

Caroline Glassman, Portland, for plaintiff.

Courtland D. Perry, Asst. Atty. Gen., Augusta, for defendant.

Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEBBER, WEATHERBEE, POMEROY and WERNICK, JJ.

WEATHERBEE, Justice.

This petition for the common law writ of habeas corpus presents us with a clear challenge to the constitutionality of our statutory provision for immediate commitment to the custody of the Commissioner of Mental Health and Corrections of persons who have been charged with criminal acts and who have been found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. We find no constitutional deprivation in the case before us.

Petitioner was indicted on a charge that on or about July 19, 1968 he made an oral communication threatening to injure the person of another. The offense charged was a felony. After hearing on his motion Petitioner was found to be competent to stand trial. He then entered a plea of not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease and mental defect. On September 25, 1968, after trial, the jury returned its verdict finding Petitioner not guilty because he was not responsible for the act charged, the act having been the product of mental disease or mental defect. The Presiding Justice ordered Petitioner committed to the custody of the Commissioner of Mental Health and Corrections to be placed in an appropriate institution for the mentally ill or the mentally retarded for care, custody and treatment as was and is required by 15 M.R.S.A. § 103.

On September 26, 1968 the Petitioner, on the Commissioner's order, was received at the Bangor State Hospital and later at the Augusta State Hospital. Both are institutions for the mentally ill and Petitioner has been confined in one institution or the other since the Commissioner's order. His petition, presented by court appointed counsel, alleges that this restraint is illegal, and a Justice in the Superior Court has ordered the issue it offers sent to us on report.

The precise issue submitted to us is whether the Petitioner has been and is illegally and unconstitutionally restrained without due process of law and in denial of equal protection of the law in that he was involuntarily committed to an institution for the mentally ill without hearing and determination as to an existing need for his commitment.

The underlying basis of Petitioner's complaint is that while the jury determined after trial that he suffered from a mental illness or mental defect on July 19, 1968 which resulted in his doing an otherwise-criminal act, there was no determination that he suffered from any dangerous mental condition on September 25, 1968 when he was ordered committed to the custody of the Commissioner.

Section 103 reads:

'When a respondent is acquitted, by reason of mental disease or mental defect excluding responsibility, the verdict and judgment shall so state. In such case the court shall order such person committed to the custody of the Commissioner of Mental Health and Corrections to be placed in an appropriate institution for the mentally ill or the mentally retarded for care and treatment. Upon placement in such appropriate institution and in the event of transfer from one such institution to another of persons committed under this section, notice thereof shall be given by the commissioner to the committing court.'

Section 103 must meet the strictures of both the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution and of Article I, §§ 6 and 6A of our own constitution and the guarantees of equal protection announced in both constitutions. Due Process.

Fundamental in the guarantees of due process are the right to notice and hearing. Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337 (1949); Michaud v. City of Bangor, 159 Me. 491, 196 A.2d 106 (1963). While hearing and opportunity to present a defense must normally precede an incarceration, the Justices of this Court have recognized that a situation of emergency may require the immediate commitment of a person upon proper certification as to his dangerous condition if the commitment is followed by notice and a prompt, orderly hearing at which a defense may be presented. Opinion of the Justices, 157 Me. 187, 170 A.2d 660 (1961). The availability of the prompt hearing, the Justices concluded, satisfied the demands of due process.

The Justices were then considering proposed Legislation which included provision for emergency civil commitment where it had been certified that the individual was likely to injure himself and others unless immediately restrained.

The Justices' opinion represented a reasonable and judicious weighing of the public's right to be protected from dangerous mentally ill persons against the individual's right to be protected against unjustified confinement and their conclusion that in such cases the individual must yield his usual expectation of hearing before commitment appears to us to be a proper one in view of the prompt availability of hearing following commitment.

We consider that at least equally important policy considerations rationally justify the immediate commitment under § 103 of a person who has been found not guilty by reason of mental disease or mental defect and who has already thus demonstrated his capacity for prohibited conduct brought about by his mental condition.

The factors which underlie the rationality of the legislative structure are:

1. Under Maine law the issue of the exclusion of responsibility for an otherwise-criminal act by reason of mental disease or mental defect can be raised only by the Defendant, by an affirmative special plea which avoids the objectionable possibility (stressed by Lynch v. Overholser, 369 U.S. 705, 82 S.Ct. 1063, 8 L.Ed.2d 211 (1962)) that an acquittal by reason of mental disease or mental defect can be forced upon him against his will.

2. Our statute requires that there be a determination by the jury, upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that a defendant has perpetrated upon society conduct which the State has classified as being of a type which causes a harm to the public interest justifying both criminal punishment and effort on the part of the State to prevent recurrence of such conduct. (This determination is implicit in a finding of not guilty by reason of mental disease or mental defect.) State v. Hathaway, 161 Me. 255, 211 A.2d 558 (1965).

3. There must have been an affirmative finding, by a fair preponderance of the evidence, that the otherwise-criminal conduct was the result of mental disease or mental defect. This finding places the defendant in an exceptional class. (State v. Shackford, Jr., Me., 262 A.2d 359 (1970).)

4. Because of the potentialities of people in this exceptional class for further conduct injurious to themselves or others, society acquires a special interest in such persons justifying the careful determination whether such persons require custody and treatment to avoid danger to themselves or others due to mental disease or mental defect.

5. It is unavoidable that between the verdict and the determination as to defendant's then existing mental condition a time lapse must occur. The reliability of such a determination must rest on the ability of competent medical experts to have reasonable opportunity for examination and observation of the defendant. The Legislature was required to make a policy judgment

'whether during that time lapse the defendant should be at large and unattended or whether he should be in a hospital where the observation, examination and medical findings can be completed in the shortest possible time.' Ragsdale v. Overholser, 108 U.S.App.D.C. 308, 281 F.2d 943, 948 (1960).

The Legislature has reasonably concluded that the security of the community and the welfare of the individual can best be served if the defendant is confined to an institution for the mentally ill during this necessary period of observation (and, if required, of treatment).

Some other jurisdictions have recognized the necessity of commitment pending determination as to present mental condition and have based the reasonableness of their statutes on a presumption that mental illness which has been found to have existed at the time of the crime continues until the presumption has been satisfactorily removed.

The Delaware Court said, in Mills v. State, Del., 256 A.2d 752 (1969):

'We hold that in adjusting the delicate balance between a society's right to be protected from potentially mental ill and dangerous individuals, on the one hand, and the individual's right to be protected from improvident confinement on the other, it was not a denial of due process to commit the appellant under § 4702(a) by virtue of the presumption of continuing mental illness and the jury's verdict, without a separate hearing and determination as to present mental condition.'

Although our Court has spoken with approval of the presumption of continuing insanity in a civil action against the State based on negligence of the Superintendent of the State Hospital in releasing a patient who had earlier been found to have been insane (Austin W. Jones Company v. State of Maine, 122 Me. 214, 119 A. 577 (1923)), we consider that no judicial presumption need be resorted to in order to justify such immediate commitment. Once a defendant has been found 'not guilty by reason of mental disease or mental defect', special factors and policy considerations rationally justify immediate commitment inasmuch as such a defendant might or could be incapable of controlling his behavior, might or could be an instrumentality of harm to himself or others, might or could be in need of study, observation and treatment for the accomplishment of which, in the shortest possible time, hospital confinement is reasonable.

The strong policy...