Hop, In re
| Decision Date | 19 February 1981 |
| Docket Number | Cr. 21263 |
| Citation | 171 Cal.Rptr. 721,623 P.2d 282,29 Cal.3d 82 |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
| Parties | , 623 P.2d 282 In re Irene HOP on Habeas Corpus. |
Charles E. Ward, Public Defender, Littleton M. Gunn and Andrew E. Rubin, Deputy Public Defenders, for petitioner.
George Deukmejian, Atty. Gen., Robert H. Philibosian, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Daniel J. Kremer, Asst. Atty. Gen., A. Wells Petersen and Jay M. Bloom, Deputy Attys. Gen., for respondent.
We are presented with a habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of Irene Hop who is a developmentally disabled adult woman presently suffering from juvenile ceroid lipofunscinosis (Spielmeyer Vogt or Batten disease). The petition, verified by her counsel of record, recites that since 1975 she has been under the care of Inland Counties Regional Center (the Center), that she has neither guardian of her person or estate nor conservator, and that for several years she had been cared for at the Salem-Christian Home in Ontario, California but on February 15, 1979, on the petition of her mother, she was placed in respondent Lanterman State Hospital, a more confining facility, as a nonprotesting developmentally disabled person. It is further alleged that she lacked the ability to object to her transfer to respondent, and that through successive but unsuccessful petitions for habeas corpus she has been unable to obtain any judicial review of the propriety of her initial transfer and confinement at respondent hospital.
The central issue presented is whether the statutory scheme which permits the placement of "nonprotesting" developmentally disabled adults in state hospitals for an indefinite time meets the constitutional requirements of due process and equal protection of the laws. We will conclude that the present statutory procedures are constitutionally infirm.
We dispose first of a preliminary contention by respondent hospital that the Public Defender of San Bernardino County lacks standing to bring this proceeding on behalf of Hop because neither she nor her family objected to her initial hospital placement or continued confinement. Indeed, it was her mother who requested her placement with respondent hospital.
Penal Code section 1474 contemplates that an application for a writ of habeas corpus may be signed "either by the party for whose relief it is intended or by some person on his behalf." In similar fashion, Welfare and Institutions Code section 4800 () specifies that a request for release of an adult admitted or committed to a state hospital may be made either by the adult or "any person acting on his behalf," and that thereafter the "developmentally disabled patient shall have a right to a hearing by writ of habeas corpus." Thus, under the general authority in the Penal Code and the specific statutory provisions dealing with the developmentally disabled, proceedings may be initiated by a "person" on "his behalf," and habeas corpus is designated as the appropriate means for challenging confinement in a state hospital.
In In re Harrell (1970) 2 Cal.3d 675, 87 Cal.Rptr. 504, 470 P.2d 640, we expressed our views concerning requests by prisoners to file habeas corpus petitions for other prisoners. Referring to the habeas petition, we said that "although it may be prepared by another, (the application) should be signed, verified, and filed by the inmate or inmates seeking relief" (p. 689, 87 Cal.Rptr. 504, 470 P.2d 640), and that (Ibid., fn. omitted, italics added.)
The petition before us recites Hop's lack of "ability to protest her transfer to a more restrictive placement." Her placement was initiated by her mother with the concurrence of the regional center and hospital staff. We would not reasonably anticipate that those initiating, recommending and concurring in her placement would challenge, by habeas corpus proceeding, the propriety of their own actions. Furthermore, we cannot assume that Hop who has been placed in the hospital because of her disability would be competent to initiate or to "sign, verify and file" a habeas corpus petition. (Cf., In re Davis (1978) 8 Cal.3d 798, 806-807, fn. 6, 106 Cal.Rptr. 178, 505 P.2d 1018.) We conclude, accordingly, that the "exceptional circumstances" exist which were required in Harrell (see 2 Cal.3d at p. 689, fn. 8, 87 Cal.Rptr. 504, 470 P.2d 640), and that the public defender has standing under Penal Code section 1474 and Welfare and Institutions Code section 4800 to bring this habeas corpus petition.
Hop was placed in a state hospital under the provisions of Welfare and Institutions Code section 4825 which authorizes "the admission of an adult developmentally disabled person to a state hospital ... upon the application of the person's parent or guardian or conservator in accordance with the provisions of Sections 4653 and 4803." Sections 4653 and 4803 permit placement in a state hospital if the regional center recommends such placement and "an employee or designee" of the regional center certifies that no objection has been made to the placement by either the person recommended or any person acting on his behalf. Section 6000.5 authorizes the state hospital to accept a person so recommended.
Respondent contends that Hop's placement was "voluntary," stressing that any person acting on her behalf and objecting to her placement could obtain her freedom pursuant to habeas corpus release authorized by section 4800 et seq. or pursuant to the administrative process described in the Release Procedures Manual used by the state hospitals for the developmentally disabled. We examine and summarize these suggested procedures.
Section 4800 et seq. provides that every person (who, for convenience, we hereafter describe as the ward) admitted or committed to a state hospital or other related facility "shall have a right to a hearing by writ of habeas corpus for his release ... after he or any person acting on his behalf makes a request for release to any member of the staff ...." Judicial review occurs in the appropriate superior court which may either order the ward's release, or conduct an evidentiary hearing following which, if the court finds that the ward is not developmentally disabled or is disabled but "able to provide safely for his basic personal needs for food, shelter, and clothing, he shall be immediately released." If the ward needs care and there is a responsible person, regional center, or other agency willing and able to assume such care the court may release the ward to such responsible person or agency. If the ward is found to be developmentally disabled and without parent, and lacking but needing a conservator the court "shall order the appropriate regional center or the state department to initiate ... proceedings for the appointment of a conservator ...." (§ 4801.)
The Release Procedures Manual provides the necessary steps to be taken when a voluntary or nonprotesting developmentally disabled resident, verbally or nonverbally, indicates that he or she wishes to leave the facility. Within 24 hours a "validity conference" must be held at which the staff evaluates the request. If staff concludes that harm may result from immediate release, the regional center must be notified and asked to determine within five days whether commitment procedures pursuant to section 6500 or community placement should be initiated. If a petition for commitment is filed at the regional center's request, the ward's status is changed to that of a "detainee" under section 6506 which authorizes detention in a state hospital pending a commitment hearing. If no commitment petition is filed and a community placement is not immediately available the ward is placed on "administrative hold," and detained in the hospital while a formal request for release is forwarded to the superior court.
We test these procedures applying well accepted constitutional standards.
Section 4502 provides that "Persons with developmental disabilities have the same legal rights and responsibilities guaranteed all other individuals by the Federal Constitution and laws and the Constitution and laws of the State of California." This is but a legislative reaffirmation of a firmly rooted and independent constitutional principle which assures that persons will not be deprived of due process or equal protection of law on the basis of developmental disability alone.
We have consistently recognized several related and controlling principles. "(P)ersonal liberty is a fundamental interest, second only to life itself ...." (People v. Olivas (1976) 17 Cal.3d 236, 251, 131 Cal.Rptr. 55, 551 P.2d 375.) An involuntary civil commitment in a state hospital for the mentally ill is a commitment which requires the application of criminal due process standards. (Conservatorship of Roulet (1979) 23 Cal.3d 219, 224-225, 152 Cal.Rptr. 425, 590 P.2d 1.) Any confinement in a state hospital for the developmentally disabled must invoke the same standard. We have also insisted that "although the procedures leading to the commitment of various classes of people for treatment or to protect society from them need not be identical in all respects, none may deny to one such class fundamental rights or privileges accorded to another unless a rational basis for the distinction exists." (In re Gary W. (1971) 5 Cal.3d 296, 304, 96...
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