Orencia v. Overholser, 9456.
| Decision Date | 11 August 1947 |
| Docket Number | No. 9456.,9456. |
| Citation | 163 F.2d 763,82 US App. DC 285 |
| Parties | ORENCIA v. OVERHOLSER. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Mr. Frederick De Joseph, of Washington, D. C., for appellant.
Mr. Oliver O. Dibble, Assistant United States Attorney, of Washington, D. C., with whom Messrs. George Morris Fay, United States Attorney, and Sidney S. Sachs, Assistant United States Attorney, both of Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellee.
Before GRONER, Chief Justice, and WILBUR K. MILLER and PRETTYMAN, Associate Justices.
By this appeal Mrs. Mary Orencia asks us to reverse an order of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia discharging a writ of habeas corpus which had been issued pursuant to her petition.
Her first application for a writ of habeas corpus was filed on April 3, 1945, based on the ground that she had been restored to mental health. The writ was granted and a hearing was had on June 11, 1945, following which the District Court discharged the writ and remanded Mrs. Orencia to the custody of the respondent, the superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital. She again petitioned for habeas corpus on September 30, 1946. Having issued the writ, the District Court heard evidence and then discharged it, and again remanded the appellant to the hospital. She appeals.
On February 12, 1944, the appellant, who had become the mother of six children by the time she was twenty-three years of age, killed her three-year old daughter. A few days later she was indicted for second degree murder. At her trial in November, 1944, there was evidence that Mrs. Orencia was suffering from an epileptic psychosis, one of the symptoms of which is the occurrence of periods of amnesia. The jury's verdict of "Not guilty by reason of insanity" was certified by the District Court to the Federal Security Administrator, as required by § 24 — 301, District of Columbia Code (1940). Pursuant to that certification, the Administrator on November 27, 1944, committed the appellant to St. Elizabeths Hospital, an institution for the insane, where she is now confined.
The appellant charges that her original commitment to St. Elizabeths Hospital was wrongfully ordered by the District Court, instead of by the Federal Security Administrator. The record shows, however, that the commitment was in fact properly authorized by the Administrator.
Next she asserts that she could not be lawfully commited to an asylum for the insane except pursuant to a judgment entered after an inquiry directed solely to the question of her mental condition. Her point seems to be that she could not legally be committed as an insane person pursuant to the verdict of the jury in the murder trial, but that she was entitled to be tried by a jury in a proceeding devoted solely to an inquiry as to her sanity. The statute under which the court certified the jury's verdict to the Federal Security Administrator and under which she was committed refutes that contention.1
Moreover, we perceive no reason for a second trial by a jury as to her mental condition, when the murder jury had duly tried the same issue tendered by her. Whatever the rule in such circumstances may be in some jurisdictions, in our view we would be disregarding the statute and the dictates of common sense as well, should we hold that a defendant who has been found not guilty of murder by a jury which accepted his plea and proof of insanity may not lawfully be committed as an insane person without a second inquest into his mental condition by another jury sworn to try that issue only.
That the appellant was insane at the time she killed her child is not and cannot be questioned, since it was so determined by the jury in the murder case. Barry v. White, 62 App.D.C. 69, 64 F.2d 707. Such insanity is presumed to continue, and,...
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