Commitment of Edward S., Matter of

• Decision Date: 08 March 1990
• Citation: 570 A.2d 917,118 N.J. 118
• Parties: In the Matter of the COMMITMENT OF EDWARD S.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 118

118 N.J. 118

570 A.2d 917

In the Matter of the COMMITMENT OF EDWARD S.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued April 24, 1989.

Decided March 8, 1990.

Angela V. Passalacqua, Asst. Deputy Public Advocate, for appellant (Alfred A. Slocum, Public Advocate, attorney).

James P. Lynch, Asst. Prosecutor, for respondent (Samuel Asbell, Camden County Prosecutor, attorney).

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

WILENTZ, C.J.

Edward S., having been found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity, was committed to the New Jersey State Forensic Hospital for the Criminally Insane. The issue in this case is whether subsequent hearings to determine whether he should be freed or remain committed may be open to the public or must be in camera. We hold that the statutory mandate requiring that such hearings be in camera where a civil committee is involved does not apply to one committed following a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity (NGI committees). For similar reasons, we hold that our own court rule, tracking the statute, was not intended to mandate an in camera hearing for such committees.

We conclude further that where the charge was murder, the various interests involved are best accommodated by a rule presumptively requiring proceedings open to the public, and that the presumption is strong. Applying that holding to the facts of this case, future periodic hearings to determine whether Edward S. shall be freed shall presumptively be open to the public.

I.

Edward S. lived in a boarding house for people suffering from mental disorders. The house was operated by Millie Ingram. On August 4, 1983, Edward stabbed Ms. Ingram to death with a butcher's knife. Testimony at a bench trial held on April 2, 1984, revealed that he "became delusional, thought he was God and was endowed with supernatural power to kill people. He had a delusion that the landlady was the devil who was going to kill Jesus Christ." The judge who presided over the trial and all subsequent hearings found Edward not guilty by reason of insanity and committed him to the New Jersey State Forensic Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

At a July 16, 1984, review hearing, the court ordered a transfer of Edward to Ancora Psychiatric Hospital. On September 28, 1984, as a result of another hearing, Edward was transferred to Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, where he is currently a patient. Along with those transfers, the court granted Edward increased levels of privileges. They included open-ward privileges, overnight visits to his parents, and escorted, off-grounds privileges for recreational trips and for drug and alcohol rehabilitation meetings.

The September hearing was held in camera. The court ordered the courtroom to be cleared. Although no members of the general public were present, decedent's family members were permitted to remain. A dispute exists over who attended subsequent periodic review hearings. The Assistant Prosecutors states that since 1985, the decedent's family members and other members of the public attended the hearings. Counsel for Edward in the criminal trial certifies that at the periodic hearings when he represented Edward, only members of the decedent's family and Edward S.'s family were present. The Public Defender's Office subsequently represented Edward S. for the first time at a May 15, 1987, review hearing. That hearing was attended by Edward's parents, two members of decedent's family, and the testifying psychiatrist.

Prior to that May review hearing, counsel for Edward requested an in camera hearing pursuant to Rule 4:74-7(e), the rule governing ordinary civil commitments. It was the first time such a motion was made. The request was that those attending be limited to Edward's family, his doctor, and his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. The trial court denied the request and ruled that the hearing would be open to the public. The court found that although the commitment of one found not guilty by reason of insanity is to proceed on a civil basis,

the cause and the reason for this hearing here today is so substantial, and there is such a public interest, that this Court finds that to deny those who are present, the members of the family, to hear the testimony, for them to hear how [Edward S.] is proceeding, and for them to understand whatever action the Court has taken, [would amount to taking away] ... an absolute right that they have.

The court supplemented that oral finding with a written determination that periodic review hearings for a committee found not guilty by reason of insanity should not be held in camera.

After this denial of her motion for an in camera hearing, counsel for Edward indicated that she could not proceed with the hearing due to the "substantial number of people that are in the courtroom in addition to Mrs. Ingram's family" without violating the confidentiality rights of her client. As a result, the court stayed the review hearing pending appeal. In the course of the attempted appeal, the statute was amended with the claimed effect of granting an absolute right to an in camera hearing. At that point we granted Edward S.'s motion for leave to appeal.

II.

Until 1975 neither our statutes nor court rules provided for in camera hearings for commitment proceedings. In 1974, Chief Justice Hughes issued a Memorandum to Assignment Judges and others designed to make uniform our civil commitment procedures throughout the State. The memorandum sets forth those procedures in some detail, including provisions for periodic review. It did not, however, mention anything about in camera hearings. As a result of that memorandum the Civil Practice Committee recommended a revision of the civil commitment rule ( Rule 4:74-7) "to accord with the directive itself and with concepts of fundamental fairness and to foster uniform treatment of involuntary civil commitments throughout the State." The Committee's proposed rule went well beyond the Chief Justice's memorandum. The Court thereafter amended that rule largely in conformance with the recommendations of the Civil Practice Committee including, in somewhat different form, a provision for in camera hearings. Dealing solely with civil commitment proceedings, the rule as thus amended read: "The hearing shall be held in camera unless good cause to the contrary is shown." R. 4:74-7(e) (1975). That was the first appearance of an in camera provision.

Prior to that time there had been "a great divergence of practice ... in involuntary proceedings" (Hughes Memorandum) as well as "a longstanding history of procedural abuses in the civil commitment process," the purpose of the revised rule being to correct both and "to insure that no person may be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution without having been afforded full procedural due process." Pressler, Current N.J. Court Rules, Comment R. 4:74-7 at 1129 (1990). In New Jersey the welter of divergent practice did not deal with whether hearings were open or in camera. ¹ And proceedings to commit those found not guilty by reason of insanity were, inferentially at least, open to the public. That conclusion is based on the fact that at least from 1943 to 1975 the statute ² required the jury's verdict to include not only its conclusion that defendant was not guilty by reason of insanity but a special finding on whether the insanity continued, N.J.S.A. 2A:163-3, resulting, without more, in defendant's commitment. Because the trial was public and the charge to the jury and its verdict apparently incorporated both the acquittal and the special finding of continued insanity (see State v. Maik, 60 N.J. 203, 217-19, 287 A.2d 715 (1972); State v. Vigliano, 43 N.J. 44, 61-62, 202 A.2d 657 (1964)), the "proceedings"--whatever it was that the jury heard leading to its special finding that the insanity continued--were presumably similarly public. See also State v. Krol, 68 N.J. 236, 344 A.2d 289 (1975) (clearly indicating the evidence on continued insanity (or future dangerousness) was part of the guilt trial). Indeed, the related proceeding, to determine whether insanity prevented a defendant from standing trial, N.J.S.A. 2A:163-2, also leading to commitment, was required to be in open court.

The first appearance of an in camera hearing requirement in New Jersey is a part of the history of increasing attention to the rights of persons suffering from mental illness. As doubts concerning the fairness of society's treatment of the mentally ill grew, legislative provisions affording greater protection were adopted, reflected in, and to some extent triggered by judicial decisions on the subject. The most basic change rejected "insanity" alone as justification for commitment: dangerousness to self or society became the standard. Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715, 92 S.Ct. 1845, 32 L.Ed.2d 435 (1972). Accompanying that fundamental change were modifications designed to accord procedural due process to committees, including modifications that recognized the need for periodic review of the commitment to assure that if danger no longer existed, the committee would not be forever institutionalized for lack of inquiry. O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 95 S.Ct. 2486, 45 L.Ed.2d 396 (1975). More to the point here, the difference in treatment of the mentally ill based on whether or not the illness was manifested in criminal conduct was constitutionally obliterated. Jackson v. Indiana, supra, 406 U.S. 715, 92 S.Ct. 1845, 32 L.Ed.2d 435; Baxstrom v. Herold, 383 U.S. 107, 86 S.Ct. 760, 15 L.Ed.2d 620 (1966).

Those developments led, in New Jersey, to Chief Justice Hughes' memorandum in 1974 concerning civil commitments and, shortly thereafter, to State v. Krol, supra, 68 N.J. 236, 344 A.2d 289, in which we held that those committed after a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity were entitled to substantially the same treatment as civil committees, in particular, that the standard for commitment was the same,...