Lewis, Matter of

• Decision Date: 21 August 1979
• Citation: 403 A.2d 1115
• Parties: In the Matter of Dio W. LEWIS.
• Court: Supreme Court of Delaware

Page 1115

403 A.2d 1115

In the Matter of Dio W. LEWIS.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted June 15, 1979.

Decided Aug. 21, 1979.

Upon appeal from Superior Court. Affirmed.

Bettina C. Ferguson, Wilmington, for appellant, petitioner.

Matthew J. Lynch, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., Wilmington, for appellee, respondent.

Before DUFFY, McNEILLY and QUILLEN, Justices.

McNEILLY, Justice:

Appellant challenges the constitutional validity of the statutory procedures (11 Del.C. § 403) by which he was committed and is being held at the Delaware State Hospital following a determination by a Trial Judge of the Superior Court that appellant was not guilty by reason of insanity in a criminal case.

11 Del.C. § 403(a) provides for commitment to the Delaware State Hospital as follows:

"Upon the rendition of a verdict of 'not guilty by reason of insanity,' the court shall, upon motion of the Attorney General, order that the person so acquitted shall forthwith be committed to the Delaware State Hospital."

11 Del.C. § 403(b) provides for release from such commitment as follows:

"A person committed to the Delaware State Hospital in accordance with subsection (a) shall be kept there until the Superior Court of the county wherein the case was tried is satisfied that the public safety will not be endangered by his release. The Superior Court shall without special motion reconsider the necessity of continued detention of a person thus committed after he has been detained for 1 year. It shall thereafter reconsider his detention upon motion on his behalf or whenever advised by the State Hospital that the public safety will not be endangered by his release."

I

Following his indictment for sexual assault and kidnapping, appellant entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Appellant stipulated to facts constituting a prima facie case and in April 1975, a hearing was held on the issue of his mental condition at the time of the offenses. At the conclusion of the hearing the Trial Judge determined that appellant was not guilty by reason of insanity and ordered appellant's immediate commitment to the Delaware State Hospital.

In November 1977 a hearing was held before the Trial Judge upon appellant's application for release from the Hospital pursuant to 11 Del.C. § 403(b). ¹ His application was denied and in October 1978, appellant filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, again seeking release from the Hospital. The Superior Court denied the petition on January 5, 1979, and this appeal followed.

In regard to his initial commitment pursuant to 11 Del.C. § 403(a), appellant contends that he was denied due process of law in that he was not afforded a judicial determination, with accompanying procedural safeguards, as to the existence of any mental illness at the time of his commitment. He also contends that his initial commitment pursuant to 11 Del.C. § 403(a) was a denial of equal protection of the law because of the differences between § 403(a) and 16 Del.C. § 5125 (1953) (repealed by 60 Del.Laws, c. 95, § 2, effective July 1, 1975), the involuntary civil commitment statute in effect at the time of appellant's initial commitment.

In regard to his continued confinement pursuant to 11 Del.C. § 403(b), appellant contends that § 403(b) denies him due process of law because the criteria for release in § 403(b) are so vague as to be void and because § 403(b) fails to require that the Superior Court's determination concerning an insanity acquitee's dangerousness be related to mental illness. He also contends that his continued confinement under 11 Del.C. § 403(b) denies him equal protection of the law because of the differences between the release procedures of § 403(b) and the release procedures provided in 16 Del.C. Ch. 50, now governing involuntary civil commitments to the Delaware State Hospital.

Appellant's arguments are essentially the same as those presented to this Court in Mills v. State, Del.Supr., 256 A.2d 752 (1969), challenging the constitutionality of the insanity acquittal commitment procedures codified in 11 Del.C. §§ 4702(a), (c) (1953) (repealed by 58 Del.Laws, c. 497, § 2, effective April 1, 1973). ² For purposes of analysis in this appeal, our present code provisions of 11 Del.C. § 403 are equivalent to the provisions of § 4702 which were considered in Mills.

II

Focusing first on the commitment procedure of 11 Del.C. § 403(a), we find no merit to either the due process or equal protection arguments posed by the appellant. As in Mills, our conclusion is based in part on the presumption that mental illness which a defendant has alleged and proven by a preponderance of the evidence to have existed at the time he performed the criminal acts, continues until such time as the presumption is satisfactorily rebutted. 256 A.2d, at 755 ". . . (E)qual protection does not require that the appellant here must have the same procedural safeguards for commitment (the certificates of two physicians) as pertain to one civilly committed under 16 Del.C. § 5125, so long as there is a reasonable basis for the distinction made. We find such reasonable basis for distinction in the judicial determination by judge and jury of the mental illness of a § 4702 patient. This is a safeguard against improvident commitment of a higher order than the two certificates required for a civil commitment." ³ 256 A.2d, at 756.

Public policy considerations yield another reasonable distinction between insanity acquitees and involuntary civil committees for purposes of initial commitment:

". . . (T)he finding by the jury that a defendant, because of his mental disease or defect, shall be held blameless for an act otherwise subject to criminal sanctions puts such a defendant into an exceptional class. The special interest which the public has acquired in the confinement and release of people in this exceptional class results from the fact that there has been a judicial determination that they have already endangered the public safety and their own as a result of their mental conditions as distinguished from people civilly committed because of only potential danger." Chase v. Kearns, Me.Supr., 278 A.2d 132, 138 (1971).

Appellant argues that 16 Del.C. Ch. 50, governing involuntary commitments to the Delaware State Hospital, supports his proposition that there is no rational distinction between insanity acquitees and involuntary civil committees for purposes of their initial commitment procedures. Appellant asserts that, under the definition of a "mentally ill person" provided in 16 Del.C. § 5001(1), the class of persons suffering from a mental disease or condition which "poses a real and present threat, based upon manifest indications, that such person is likely to commit . . . serious harm to . . . others", necessarily includes insanity acquitees, thereby requiring commitment procedures for insanity acquitees identical to those afforded involuntary civil committees. See 16 Del.C. § 5001(1). In support of his argument, appellant cites Baxstrom v. Herold, 383 U.S. 107, 86 S.Ct. 760, 15 L.Ed.2d 620 (1966); Humphrey v. Cady, 405 U.S. 504, 92 S.Ct. 1048, 31 L.Ed.2d 394 (1972); and, Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715, 92 S.Ct. 1845, 32 L.Ed.2d 435 (1972).

We reject this argument based on the observation of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine: That insanity acquitees constitute an "exceptional class" because "they have already endangered the public safety . . . as a result of their mental conditions as distinguished from people civilly committed because of only potential danger." Chase, 278 A.2d, at 138. Although the definition of a "mentally ill person" provided in 16 Del.C. § 5001(1) appears broad enough to include insanity acquitees for purposes of potential future behavior, it fails to account for this one important distinction based on past conduct, i. e., insanity acquitees have performed acts which, but for the existence of a mental disease or defect that the time of the acts, would otherwise have subjected them to criminal sanctions. These past criminal acts are sufficient to justify the procedural differences in initial commitment between the two groups. Furthermore, Baxstrom, Humphrey, and Jackson are inapposite because none of the three dealt with the constitutional validity of procedures for initial commitment of an insanity acquitee.

We also reject appellant's contention that he was denied due process of law in that he was not afforded a judicial determination, with accompanying safeguards, as to the existence of any mental illness at the time of his commitment. As in Mills, "(w)e 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 § 403(a) without a separate hearing of the type provided involuntary civil committees pursuant to 16 Del.C. § 5006. ⁴ See Mills, supra; Chase, supra; People ex rel. Henig v. Commissioner of Mental Hygiene, N.Y.Ct.App., 43 N.Y.2d 334, 372 N.E.2d 304 (1977); State ex rel. Schopf v. Schubert, Wis.Supr., 45 Wis.2d 644, 173 N.W.2d 673 (1970); State v. Marzbanian, Conn.Cir., 2 Conn.Cir. 312, 198 A.2d 721 (1963).

Unlike the involuntary civil committee who generally denies the existence of the mental condition for which he is committed, the insanity acquitee has been provided a judicial hearing at which he has alleged and proven by a preponderance of the evidence the very mental condition which he has manifested in past criminal action and for which, by reason of the presumption of continuing mental illness, he is committed. We believe this provides a rational basis for the insanity acquitee's immediate commitment. Moreover, "(n)othing in § 403 is meant to limit the right of the committed person or someone acting on his behalf to move the Court for release At any...