Taylor v. Commissioner of Mental Health and Mental Retardation

Citation481 A.2d 139
PartiesHenry A. TAYLOR, III v. COMMISSIONER OF MENTAL HEALTH AND MENTAL RETARDATION.
Decision Date14 August 1984
CourtSupreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)

Kelly, Remmel & Zimmerman, Graydon G. Stevens (orally) Portland, for plaintiff.

James E. Tierney, Atty. Gen., Wayne S. Moss (orally), James Erwin, Asst. Attys. Gen., Augusta, for defendant.

Before McKUSICK, C.J., and NICHOLS, ROBERTS, VIOLETTE and GLASSMAN, JJ.

McKUSICK, Chief Justice.

Henry A. Taylor, III, who has been committed to Augusta Mental Health Institute ("AMHI") since his 1979 acquittal by reason of insanity on two serious criminal charges, appeals to this court from the denial by the Superior Court (Kennebec County) of his petition for modified release treatment under 15 M.R.S.A. § 104-A (Supp.1983-1984). In absence of any legislative specification of the applicable standard of proof on such a petition, the Superior Court--following the precedent of State v. Shackford, 262 A.2d 359 (Me.1970)--required the petitioner to prove his eligibility for the proposed modified release treatment "beyond a reasonable doubt." On reexamination of the question in light of judicial and statutory developments elsewhere since Shackford, we conclude that the reasonable doubt standard is unduly stringent. We remand the case to the Superior Court for a rehearing at which petitioner to succeed must establish his eligibility for the proposed treatment by clear and convincing evidence.

I.

Henry Taylor was indicted for murder and reckless conduct in shooting to death one of his neighbors on November 17, 1978. On July 2, 1979, in a nonjury trial, Taylor was found not guilty by reason of insanity (hereinafter "BRI"). As directed by 15 M.R.S.A. § 103 (1980), the Superior Court automatically committed him to the custody of the Commissioner of Mental Health and Corrections. 1 The Commissioner placed him in the Augusta Mental Health Institute, where he has since been a patient.

Since his commitment five years ago Taylor and the AMHI staff have filed a series of petitions seeking court approval for progressively less restrictive treatment programs. 2 Judicial approval of some of those petitions has given Taylor substantial freedom to work, leave the AMHI grounds, and travel with relatives. The present petition was filed with the Superior Court on April 15, 1983. Signed by both Taylor and Dr. Ulrich Jacobsohn, the clinical director of AMHI, the petition sought approval of a "modified release treatment" plan giving Mr. Taylor still more freedom during his continued treatment. Denominated a "petition for Release Treatment Program," it sought approval, under the predecessor to 15 M.R.S.A. § 104-A(2), of a plan allowing Taylor to live full-time off the AMHI grounds at any location in Maine except for Cumberland County. The plan required Taylor to report to AMHI once a week for out-patient evaluation and medication. The estimated duration of the release treatment program before further change in treatment status was six months. The petition alleged that this program would aid Taylor in his treatment and could be accomplished without a likelihood of injury to Taylor or others due to mental illness.

The Superior Court held a hearing on this petition on August 17, 1983. At the hearing, in which counsel for both Taylor and the State participated, the Superior Court heard testimony from Dr. Jacobsohn, Taylor, and Taylor's sister. By order dated August 24, 1983, the Superior Court denied the petition. On the basis of prior Law Court authority, the Superior Court required Taylor to prove his eligibility for the requested modified release treatment "beyond a reasonable doubt." The Superior Court was unpersuaded that Taylor had met that high standard of proof. Taylor appeals to this court, contending that the Superior Court should not have required him to prove his eligibility for release beyond a reasonable doubt.

II.

At the outset it is necessary to place Taylor's argument in the broader context of Maine's system for handling persons who assert the insanity defense. A determination that an accused is not guilty by reason of insanity requires two separate findings in the criminal trial. The State must carry its initial burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the offense. 3 See 17-A M.R.S.A. §§ 32, 40 (1983). If the State is successful, the "defendant shall have the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that he lacks criminal responsibility...." 17-A M.R.S.A. § 39(1) (1983). See State v. Burnham, 406 A.2d 889, 891-92 (Me.1979), appeal after remand, 427 A.2d 969 (Me.1981). In Maine a defendant who gets a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect has persuaded the factfinder by a preponderance of the evidence that "at the time of the criminal conduct, as a result of mental disease or defect, he either lacked substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law, or lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct." 17-A M.R.S.A. § 39(1) (comparable to so-called "ALI test," see American Law Institute Model Penal Code § 4.01 (1962)).

A criminal defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity (hereinafter at times referred to as a "BRI acquittee") is subject to automatic commitment without a further hearing. 15 M.R.S.A. § 103 provides that "the court shall order such person committed to the custody of the Commissioner of Mental Health and [Mental Retardation] to be placed in an appropriate institution for the mentally ill or the mentally retarded for care and treatment."

Detailed statutory procedures govern the release and discharge of BRI acquittees committed pursuant to section 103. In addition to outright discharge of a BRI acquittee from the custody of the Commissioner of Mental Health, 15 M.R.S.A § 104-A 4 provides for his possible release from the mental institution in two forms: (1) release subject to conditions imposed by the Superior Court, such as out-patient treatment or supervision by the Division of Probation and Parole, § 104-A(1)(A); and (2) modified release treatment, involving absence from the institution's grounds for not more than 14 days, under a treatment program proposed by the institution staff and not disapproved by the Superior Court, § 104-A(2). 5

Proceedings for conditional release or discharge may be initiated either by the head of the institution where the BRI acquittee has been committed or by the acquittee, his spouse, or next of kin. Only the acquittee himself may petition the Superior Court for modified release treatment, supported by a detailed report from the institution's staff of the nature and expected results of the treatment program. The modified release program goes into effect automatically unless the court within 60 days orders a hearing on its own initiative or on request of the district attorney or Attorney General. Any release or discharge of a BRI acquittee may be approved by the Superior Court only if it finds that he "may be released or discharged without likelihood that he will cause injury to himself or to others due to mental disease or mental defect." § 104-A(1). Although section 104-A is far from being a model of drafting clarity, we read that statute, as did the court in the case at bar, to require that the statutory release eligibility test be satisfied on a petition for the approval of a program of modified release treatment, just as much as on a petition for conditional release or outright discharge. The interests of the public and the BRI acquittee in avoiding injury while the latter is away from the institution are the same whatever the basis for terminating his inpatient residency at the mental institution. That is not to say, however, that the evidentiary considerations bearing on the protection of the public and the BRI acquittee will be the same for any and all kinds of release and discharge.

A conspicuous lacuna exists in section 104-A. The legislature has not stated what standard of proof should be required by the Superior Court in determining whether a BRI acquittee satisfies the statutory release eligibility test. 6 Fourteen years ago we affirmed a Superior Court justice's requirement that as a condition for an acquittee's release he must establish "by evidence, convincing in its effect beyond a reasonable doubt that release could be effected without danger to the public within the foreseeable future." (Emphasis added) State v. Shackford, 262 A.2d 359, 365 (Me.1970). In Shackford, we recognized that the controlling statute 7 did not define the standard of proof, and that the court was thus left to define the appropriate standard of proof to be applied in the context of Maine's statutory scheme for the insanity defense and for institutionalizing BRI acquittees. Cf. Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 755-56, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 1395-96, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982) ("the degree of proof required in a particular type of proceeding 'is the kind of question which has traditionally been left to the judiciary to resolve' "). Finding compelling the reasoning of a 1960 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, 8 we declared We think it reasonable to require that reasonable medical doubts and reasonable judicial doubts be resolved in favor of the public.

State v. Shackford, 262 A.2d at 366.

The next year, in Chase v. Kearns, 278 A.2d 132 (Me.1971), which upheld the constitutionality of the reasonable doubt standard of proof, we said of Shackford:

We based our conclusion that reasonable medical doubts must be resolved in favor of the public not on particular language of the statute but on the paramount necessity of protecting the special interest which the public acquired in the confinement and release of such a patient.

Id. at 137. In the 13 years that have elapsed since Chase, 9 we have not been called upon to reexamine the reasonable doubt rule, which our court in ...

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