United States ex rel. Demeter v. Yeager, 17434.

• Decision Date: 12 November 1969
• Docket Number: No. 17434.,17434.
• Citation: 418 F.2d 612
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Albert DEMETER, #43669, Appellant, v. Howard YEAGER, Principal Keeper New Jersey State Prison, Trenton, N. J.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

418 F.2d 612 (1969)

UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Albert DEMETER, #43669, Appellant, v. Howard YEAGER, Principal Keeper New Jersey State Prison, Trenton, N. J.

No. 17434.

United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.

Argued October 9, 1969.

Decided November 12, 1969.

Rehearing Denied January 6, 1970.

Richard R. Rulon, Dechert, Price & Rhoads, Philadelphia, Pa., for appellant.

John P. Jehl, Asst. Prosecutor, Camden, N. J. (A. Donald Bigley, Camden County Prosecutor, Camden, N. J., on the brief), for appellee.

Before McLAUGHLIN, FORMAN and ALDISERT, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

PER CURIAM.

In a New Jersey criminal court on May 11, 1953, appellant, represented by counsel, pleaded non vult to a charge of carnal abuse of an eight year old girl. He was sent to the State Diagnostic Center where he had a complete physical and mental examination. On June 25, 1953 in accordance with the Center's report, appellant was committed to the State Hospital at Trenton for an indefinite term. On March 3, 1954 he was transferred to the New Jersey State Prison from which he was paroled on June 4, 1957.

On November 7, 1960 appellant pleaded non vult to indictments for lewdness and impairing the morals of a child and was sent to the State Diagnostic Center. On the recommendation of the latter, on January 12, 1961 he was committed to the New Jersey State Prison for an indeterminate term on each indictment, to run concurrently. On August 14, 1961 appellant filed an application for habeas corpus in the state court which was denied. He later filed a notice of appeal but did not prosecute it. Thereafter he filed a combined application for habeas corpus and post conviction relief. His claim then was that he had not been afforded an opportunity to make a statement prior to sentencing. Actually his attorney made a statement for him at that time. His sentence was corrected to read "That the defendant be committed to the Special Treatment Unit for Sex Offenders, Rahway, for an indeterminate period, in accordance with the provisions of N.J.S. 2A:164-6(b)."

On May 26, 1967, appellant filed a petition for post conviction relief, alleging that the State Sex Offenders Act causes punishment in excess of that called for by the particular statute charging the crime. He further claimed that he was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment from the convicts by reason of being segregated from them in name only and because of the type of his conviction. That petition was dismissed June 15, 1967. He was granted the right to appeal and did so. The appeal was dismissed as frivolous on August 29, 1967. Certification was denied October 3, 1967. Following that the present application for habeas corpus was filed in the District Court. The latter in an exhaustive opinion denied the application. The contentions below were much the same as now urged. It is asserted that the State Sex Offenders statute is unconstitutional as denying equal protection of the laws. The statute was soundly upheld in State v. Wingler, 25 N.J. 161, 175, 135 A.2d 468, 475 (1957) where the Court approved the "reasonable classification of criminals for purposes of sentence and release." We so view the New Jersey law in question. There is always the possibility of compulsive repetitive conduct emerging in the type of crime involved. The State statute merely provides for the remedial ascertainment of whether said condition does exist. If it does, then curative treatment is rendered the prisoner patient. The latter's cure is the end result sought for and hoped for. The procedure is a giant step forward in a humane, high level effort to eliminate the dreadful end results such as we have before us. Appellant's assertion that the New Jersey Sex Offenders Act calls for a separate, independent determination in no way related to the crime for which he had been indicted and that his 1953 commitment for an indeterminate term without a full hearing re the report of the diagnostic center was a denial of due process, relies entirely upon Specht v. Patterson, 386 U.S. 605, 87 S.Ct. 1209, 18 L.Ed.2d 326 (1967) and United States ex rel. Gerchman v. Maroney, 355 F.2d 302 (3 Cir. 1966). Those decisions do not apply here. First, they dealt with statutes which created a special additional penalty which could extend to life imprisonment after conviction of certain specified offenses. We are concerned with a law that seeks to rehabilitate persons guilty of sex crimes who have a recurring tendency to commit the same type of offense. The confinement is indefinite as it largely depends upon the individual himself. However, under the law it cannot extend beyond the maximum sentence for the crime involved. There has been no evidence whatsoever from which any derogation of appellant's constitutional rights could be reasonably inferred. The recent opinion in State v. Blanford, 105 N.J.Super. 56, 59, 251 A.2d 138, 140 (1969) makes this all very clear. The...