Justin v. Jacobs

• Decision Date: 18 May 1971
• Docket Number: No. 22008.,22008.
• Citation: 449 F.2d 1017,145 US App. DC 355
• Parties: Roy JUSTIN, Appellant, v. Louis JACOBS, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

145 US App. DC 355, 449 F.2d 1017 (1971)

Roy JUSTIN, Appellant, v. Louis JACOBS, Appellee.

No. 22008.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued September 18, 1969.

Decided May 18, 1971.

Mr. Stephen A. Weiswasser, Washington, D. C. (appointed by this Court) for appellant.

Mr. Robert A. Ackerman, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. Thomas A. Flannery, U. S. Atty., and Roger E. Zuckerman, Asst. U. S. Atty., were on the brief, for appellee. Messrs. David G. Bress, U. S. Atty. at the time the record was filed, John A. Terry and Thomas C. Green, Asst. U. S. Attys., also entered appearances for appellee.

Before McGOWAN, ROBINSON and MacKINNON, Circuit Judges.

SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III, Circuit Judge:

In April, 1958, appellant was indicted on a charge of taking indecent liberties with a child.¹ A month later, he was committed to the District of Columbia General Hospital for a determination of his competence to stand trial.² The Hospital staff found him competent, but added that he was a "sexual psychopath with a compulsive need for involvement with little girls." Proceedings were then conducted under the Sexual Psychopath Act;³ appellant was found to fall within the definition of the Act and was committed to Saint Elizabeths Hospital.⁴ An appeal from the commitment decision was taken, but was later dismissed by agreement.

Appellant remained at Saint Elizabeths until November, 1958, when he was placed on convalescent leave. He eloped in November, 1959, but was returned to Saint Elizabeths in April, 1963. In July, 1967, appellant brought this habeas corpus action, alleging that his original commitment was unlawful because he was mentally ill in 1958, and because there was insufficient evidence of dangerousness to justify commitment. He also challenged his continued confinement in the Hospital, charging that he was being given inadequate treatment, that he was being held in an improper place, and that the Hospital wrongfully refused to release him as cured. The District Court, for reasons considered herein, found against appellant on all points, and discharged the writ. This appeal followed.

I

While the appeal was pending, appellant was unconditionally released from Saint Elizabeths Hospital.⁵ This circumstance dictates inquiry, at the outset, as to whether the case is now moot, or the federal habeas corpus power is otherwise impaired. Upon careful examination into the matter,⁶ we conclude upon each inquiry in the negative.

As the Supreme Court recently put it, "simply stated, a case is moot when the issues presented are no longer `live' or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome."⁷ But, as the Court has made equally plain, the case remains "live" if a party may thereafter encounter adverse effects of the event in issue.⁸ This principle has experienced frequent application in criminal cases where the potential "collateral consequences"⁹ of a conviction preserve the issue as a real one and the party's stake in its resolution as substantial.¹⁰

This court has adopted the same test of mootness in civil litigation. In Hudson v. Hardy,¹¹ the petitioner had been subjected to disciplinary measures in prison. Although by the time we decided the case the petitioner had been transferred to another penal facility, we held that, even treating the petition as one for habeas corpus, the case was not moot. We said that even though the punishment had terminated, the records thereof continue to exist, and that "if petitioner's punishment was without cause, he is punished anew each time his record is used against him."¹²

Thus we find unpersuasive any attempt to divorce the instant case from the mainstream of mootness doctrine simply because the commitment under attack was civil. As cases like Hudson demonstrate, the consequences which may flow from the contested event, not the form of action the contest assumes, are the factors relevant to a determination of mootness. And the consequences of appellant's commitment under the Sexual Psychopath Act may indeed be serious for him. As long as the commitment stands on the record, he faces state constitutional and statutory provisions which purport to bar the mentally ill from voting.¹³ He faces a challenge under the federal jury statute disqualifying those "incapable, by reason of mental or physical infirmity, to render satisfactory jury service."¹⁴ In some states, he faces a special examination when he applies for a driver's license.¹⁵ Similarly, in the District of Columbia, he faces special provisions limiting his access to a gun license.¹⁶ Quite obviously, his past commitment may facilitate another in the future.

It is, of course, by no means clear that appellant will — or lawfully could — be confronted by these obstacles or others like them. But "a criminal case is moot only if it is shown that there is no possibility that any collateral legal consequences will be imposed on the basis of the challenged conviction,"¹⁷ and we perceive no reason why that rule should not govern where the challenge is to a commitment as a sexual psychopath.¹⁸ To be sure, judicial nullification of appellant's commitment may not completely immunize him from future problems emanating therefrom. At the very least, however, it would put him in much better position to ward off burdens that otherwise might easily overtake him.

We hold that appellant has a stake in the outcome of this lawsuit substantial enough to keep it alive. However, as he concedes, the fact that he is not presently in the Hospital's custody does moot some of the issues he had previously raised — specifically, the claims that he was being given inadequate medical treatment, and was being confined in an improper place. But the issue as to the validity of his original commitment as a sexual psychopath did not, upon his release, fall "ignominiously in the limbo of mootness."¹⁹

Nor, notwithstanding repeated references in the federal habeas corpus statutes to applicants "in custody,"²⁰ can there be any doubt as to our continuing power to award appropriate relief in this case. The case at bar seems indistinguishable from Carafas v. LaVallee,²¹ in which the Supreme Court defined the "in custody" requirement in terms of custody when litigation begins.²² Carafas, convicted of burglary in 1960, applied for federal habeas corpus in 1963, while in jail. He was placed on parole in 1964, from which he was discharged in 1967, when his sentence expired. Throughout this period, the case was wending its way to the Supreme Court — the writ of certiorari was granted just twelve days after Carafas' freedom became unconditional. The Court held "that under the statutory scheme, once the federal jurisdiction has attached in the District Court, it is not defeated by the release of the petitioner prior to completion of proceedings on such application."²³ By the same token, since appellant was in custody at Saint Elizabeths Hospital when his habeas corpus petition was filed in the District Court, we did not lose jurisdiction to decide his appeal when the Hospital thereafter unconditionally released him.

II

We turn, then, to the merits. Appellant's first challenge goes to the kind of mental condition which, with other accompaniments, may justify confinement under the Sexual Psychopath Act. The Act applies only to persons "not insane,"²⁴ and appellant claims that this phrase must be interpreted to mean "not mentally ill", citing our decision in Millard v. Harris.²⁵ He argues that the Millard standard should have been applied both in the original 1958 commitment and the 1967 habeas corpus proceedings.

We agree with appellant that in his 1967 bid for release from the hospital, the Millard interpretation of the words "not insane" should have been used by the court. This exact issue was very recently decided by this court in Norwood v. Jacobs.²⁶ Norwood had been committed to Saint Elizabeths Hospital as a sexual psychopath in 1957. In 1969, he sought habeas corpus, and the District Court ordered his discharge.²⁷ This court affirmed, holding that Millard operates retroactively to prohibit the continued confinement of a mentally ill person under the Sexual Psychopath Act, and in Norwood "the evidence was uncontroverted that appellee was mentally ill."²⁸ If, then, appellant were still in custody, the case at bar would have to be remanded for a determination as to whether appellant is mentally ill under the Millard interpretation of the Act.

However, we have come to the conclusion that because appellant is not presently detained under the Act, his mental condition in 1967 is no longer an issue in this case. The reason that the case is not moot is the possibility of collateral consequences which would follow appellant, a possibility stemming from a judgment in 1958 that he was a sexual psychopath.²⁹ We are unable to see how a determination that appellant was entitled to be released in 1967 from confinement under the Act would alleviate the collateral consequences that keep the case alive. Were a court to determine that appellant was mentally ill in 1967, and therefore wrongly incarcerated under the Act, the validity of his original commitment would not have been altered. Appellant, after all, has now been discharged by the hospital, and since his discharge indicates that "he has sufficiently recovered so as to not be dangerous to other persons,"³⁰ a declaration that he should have been released because he was mentally ill in 1967 cannot be of much additional value to him in combating the collateral consequences which follow adjudication as a sexual psychopath.

We come next to the question of the standard, as respects mental condition, that should have been used in the original proceeding in 1958. No challenge is made to the 1958 finding that appellant was "not insane" under the statute; instead, appellant claims that the Millard interpretation of the Sexual Psychopath Act must be applied retroactively, and...