Houghton v. South

• Decision Date: 18 July 1984
• Docket Number: No. 84-3602,84-3602
• Citation: 743 F.2d 1438
• Parties: Henderson Duval HOUGHTON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Carroll V. SOUTH, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1438

743 F.2d 1438

Henderson Duval HOUGHTON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Carroll V. SOUTH, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 84-3602.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Submitted July 18, 1984 ^*.

Decided Oct. 2, 1984.

Henderson D. Houghton, pro se.

Nick Rotering, Dept. of Institutions, Helena, Mont., for defendant-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of montana.

Before SNEED, ANDERSON, and BEEZER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Houghton, appellant, brought this action against South, appellee, the Director of the Department of Institutions of the State of Montana, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. The complaint was dismissed by the district court. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I.

FACTS

Appellant was charged in February, 1980, by information with the felony of deviate sexual conduct involving his stepsons. Extensive proceedings ensued designed to ascertain his mental fitness to proceed to trial. It was determined in November, 1981, that he was unfit, that he be acquitted by reason of serious mental defect or mental disorder as defined by Montana law, and that he was a threat to family and the public. See Mont.Code Ann. Secs. 46-14-101 et seq. (1983). He was ordered to be transferred to the Warm Springs Hospital (the hospital) at the same time. Thereafter in May, 1982, Houghton was afforded another hearing on his present mental state. As a result, the district court of the Eighth Judicial District of the State of Montana held that Houghton continued to be seriously mentally ill and that he constituted a threat to the public requiring continued commitment to the Hospital. He presently remains at that facility.

Houghton's complaint is quite discursive but in essence it is directed at the conditions under which he is confined and the procedures by which his status can be altered. More specifically, Houghton claims he was adjudged mentally ill and committed in an unconstitutional fashion by the state court, that South imposed unconstitutional restraints on him during his confinement, that the procedures for achieving a change in his status are so impacted and complex as to deprive him of due process. Finally, he joins to these claims a prayer that the state be enjoined from constructing a new wing to the Hospital until the alleged deficiencies have been corrected.

The district court adopted findings by the Magistrate and dismissed Houghton's action for failure to state a cause of action. We affirm except with respect to the alleged restraints imposed on Houghton.

The prayer for an injunction is unrelated to the balance of the complaint. Failure to enjoin the construction imposes no irreparable harm on Houghton and Houghton's other remedies are quite adequate to provide relief for his alleged injuries.

Houghton's section 1983 claim with respect to the manner in which he was committed is directed toward the wrong official. South had nothing to do with that. Houghton was committed by a judge who, incidentally, is entitled to an absolute immunity from section 1983 suits. This claim against South was properly dismissed.

Houghton's claim against South with respect to the procedures for achieving a change of status has a dual focus. One is directed toward the sufficiency of Montana law as embodied in Chapter 14 of Title 46, Montana Code Annotated (1983), section 46-14-101 et seq., and the other toward certain actions taken by South to implement a policy "requiring physicians at Warm Springs State Hospital to go through 'lawyers in Helena to deal with courts who have been committed patients to the hospital' [sic]." Memorandum, Special Assistant Attorney General, C.R. 5.

The initial focus perhaps is intended to suggest that the commitment procedures under Chapter 14 of Title 46 are constitutionally suspect because of their difference from those under Chapter 21 of Title 53 which deal exclusively with the mentally ill not accused of a crime. This would bring into play Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715, 92 S.Ct. 1845, 32 L.Ed.2d 435 (1972), in which the Court held that the failure under The second focus also provides no basis for a civil rights action against South. All that South has done is to attempt to make uniform the procedures by which those committed by means of the criminal justice process would seek court approval of a change of their status. Such an ordinary manifestation of the bureaucratic art did not deprive Houghton of his civil rights.

the facts of the case of Indiana law to provide a method of release to one accused of crime substantially equivalent to that available to one similarly handicapped, but not accused of crime, violated equal protection and due process. We reject the suggestion that Jackson v. Indiana, under the facts of this case, provides any basis for a suit against South under section 1983. We observe that Houghton twice has been held to be a danger to the community and that section 46-14-303 of Montana Code Annotated provides a means, recurringly available, by which Houghton can obtain his release. We cannot say on the basis of this record that Houghton has been imprisoned for life without hope of release as was the accused in Jackson v. Indiana.

Houghton's claims against South with respect to restraints are more troublesome. Their essence can best be...