People v. Tilbury
| Decision Date | 01 August 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. S012984,S012984 |
| Citation | 54 Cal.3d 56,813 P.2d 1318,284 Cal.Rptr. 288 |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
| Parties | , 813 P.2d 1318 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Michael Gordon TILBURY, Defendant and Appellant. |
Jean F. Matulis, Joseph A. Ragazzo and Stacy C. Mickell as amici curiae, for defendant and appellant.
John K. Van de Kamp and Daniel E. Lungren, Attys. Gen., Steve White and Richard B. Inglehart, Chief Asst. Attys. Gen., Harley D. Mayfield, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frederick R. Millar, Jr., Robert M. Foster, Jay M. Bloom and Janelle B. Davis, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.
The question before us is whether appellant, who has been found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state hospital, is entitled to a jury trial on the issue of his eligibility for placement in a community mental health program as a supervised outpatient. (See Pen.Code, § 1026.2, subd. (e).) 1 The Court of Appeal held that appellant was entitled to a jury trial. We reverse.
On April 4, 1984, appellant Michael Gordon Tilbury went on a shooting spree with a .22-caliber rifle. Insane, he believed that he was being persecuted by secret organizations, bombarded with microwaves, and poisoned with drugs in the water supply. During this episode Tilbury shot at and tried to kill several persons, including police officers. Fortunately, he injured only one person.
On January 28, 1985, following treatment to restore his competence to stand trial (§§ 1370, 1372), Tilbury pled guilty to six counts of attempted murder, three counts of assault with a firearm, and three counts of assaulting police officers with a firearm, and admitted one enhancement for inflicting great bodily injury. Pursuant to the plea bargain Tilbury waived his right to a jury trial on the issue of sanity (§ 1026, subd. (a)) and submitted that question to the court. Based upon psychiatric reports, the court found that Tilbury was insane at the time of the offenses and, thus, not guilty by reason of insanity. (Ibid.) On March 19, 1985, after additional psychiatric evaluation (§ 1026, subd. (b)), the court determined that Tilbury had not fully recovered his sanity and committed him to Patton State Hospital for a maximum term of 23 years and 8 months. (§ 1026.1, subd. (b).)
In October 1987, following the required minimum commitment period of 180 days (§ 1601, subd. (a)), the director of Patton State Hospital recommended that Tilbury be placed on outpatient status pursuant to section 1603. Because the county mental health director did not advise the court that Tilbury would benefit from that status (§ 1602, subd. (a)(2)), the court disapproved outpatient status as it was required to do. (§ 1601, subd. (a).) The hospital director recommended outpatient placement again in April and October 1987. For the same reasons, the court denied the recommendations. None of these hearings were pursuant to section 1026.2.
In December 1987, Tilbury applied for supervised outpatient placement on his own behalf (§ 1026.2, subd. (a)) and requested a jury trial. Tilbury's counsel argued that he was entitled to a jury under In re Franklin (1972) 7 Cal.3d 126, 101 Cal.Rptr. 553, 496 P.2d 465, in which we held under a former statute that juries were required at hearings on unconditional release. The trial court denied the request based on Barnes v. Superior Court (1986) 186 Cal.App.3d 969, 231 Cal.Rptr. 158, in which the Court of Appeal held under the current statute that juries were not required at placement hearings.
At the ensuing placement hearing, for which the court did not empanel a jury, Tilbury testified that he had recently experienced a delusion similar to that which preceded his 1984 shooting spree. Based on Tilbury's testimony and on the reports of psychiatrists, the county mental health department, and the state hospital, the court denied Tilbury's application. On appeal, the Court of Appeal reversed and remanded for a jury trial.
A person who has been found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state hospital must spend one year under supervision as an outpatient in a community mental health program before applying for a trial to declare the restoration of sanity and thereby to obtain unconditional release. (§ 1026.2, subd. (e), operative until Jan. 1, 1994.) We held in In re Franklin, supra, 7 Cal.3d 126, 148-149, 101 Cal.Rptr. 553, 496 P.2d 465 (Franklin), that equal protection principles entitled a committed person to a jury at the sanity-restoration trial. At the time we decided Franklin, however, the statute did not require a term of outpatient treatment as a prerequisite to unconditional release. (See former § 1026a, renumbered as § 1026.2 and amended by Stats.1979, ch. 1114, § 2, p. 4051.) The question now before us is whether the committed person is also entitled to a jury at the first-stage hearing on outpatient placement.
We consider the question initially as a matter of statutory interpretation. The relevant statute does not purport to give a committed person the right to a jury at the hearing on outpatient placement. Instead, the statute provides that (§ 1026.2, subd. (e), italics added.) 2 If the Legislature had intended to require juries at placement hearings, it knew how to say so clearly. In the same statutory scheme the Legislature expressly provided for juries at the sanity phase of criminal trials (§ 1026, subd. (a)) 3 and at hearings to recommit at the end of the maximum term (§ 1026.5, subd. (b)(4)). 4
Even though the Legislature did not expressly provide for jury trials on the issue of outpatient placement, Tilbury advances two arguments to show that it did so implicitly. Neither argument is persuasive.
First, Tilbury argues that the statutory term "hearing" actually means "jury trial." Tilbury bases this argument on Franklin, supra, 7 Cal.3d 126, 101 Cal.Rptr. 553, 496 P.2d 465, in which we held that a committed person was entitled to a jury at the sanity-restoration hearing described in former section 1026a. 5 The former statute referred to that proceeding simply as a "hearing," without expressly requiring a jury. 6 In 1984, many years after the Franklin decision, the Legislature amended the statute to require that a committed person spend one year as a supervised outpatient before applying for a sanity-restoration hearing. (§ 1026.2, subd. (e), added by Stats.1984, ch. 1416, § 1, p. 4983.) Like the statute we interpreted in Franklin, the 1984 amendment once again uses the generic term "hearing," but this time to refer to the newly required proceeding on the committed person's application for outpatient placement. Consequently, to complete Tilbury's argument, we should give a similar interpretation to similar language.
The defect in this argument is that Franklin mandated juries at sanity-restoration hearings solely on equal protection grounds, without regard to statutory language or legislative intent. (See Franklin, supra, 7 Cal.3d at pp. 148-149, 101 Cal.Rptr. 553, 496 P.2d 465.) We did not hold that the term "hearing" meant, or was intended to mean, "jury trial."
Second, Tilbury argues that we can infer a legislative intent to provide juries at placement hearings without regard to the statutory language because the Legislature was aware of Franklin at the time it amended the statute to require such hearings. However, the legislators' awareness of Franklin logically suggests no more than that they took it for granted juries would continue to be required at sanity-restoration hearings. This was all that Franklin held.
Accordingly, there is no good reason to believe that the Legislature actually intended to require jury trials on the issue of outpatient placement. This conclusion is consistent with the purpose of the 1984 amendment, which was to make the requirements for release "stricter" and to "prevent premature release." (See Sen.Com. on Judiciary, Rep. on Sen. Bill No. 1984 (1983-1984 Reg.Sess.) (1984) pp. 1, 2; Assem.Com. on Crim. Law and Public Safety, Rep. on Sen. Bill No. 1984 (1983-1984 Reg.Sess.) (1984) p. 3.) In light of these purposes, it is far more reasonable to view the Legislature's imposition of a qualifying period as a reaction to Franklin rather than as an effort to require jury trials at an earlier phase of the release process. Franklin's effect, until the 1984 amendment, was to require jury trials every year upon demand, no matter how hopeless the case for unconditional release. After the 1984 amendment, a committed person must first carry the lesser burden of demonstrating that he is no longer a danger to self or others while "under supervision and treatment in the community." (§ 1026.2, subd. (e).)
Because the relevant statute does not give Tilbury the right to a jury trial, we must address the further question whether constitutional law gives him that right. Tilbury claims that equal protection principles entitle him to a jury because a person committed civilly would be entitled to a jury under similar circumstances.
To address Tilbury's claim, we briefly review the criminal and civil commitment schemes. When a criminal defendant pleads not guilty by reason of insanity, the finder of fact must determine by a preponderance of the evidence whether the defendant was insane at the time of the offense. (§ 1026, subd. (a); see Franklin,...
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