United States v. Wolfe

• Decision Date: 21 July 1964
• Citation: 232 F. Supp. 85
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Judith MORGAN, Petitioner, v. Solon C. WOLFE, M.D., Acting Superintendent of Matteawan State Hospital, Beacon, New York, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

232 F. Supp. 85

UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Judith MORGAN, Petitioner, v. Solon C. WOLFE, M.D., Acting Superintendent of Matteawan State Hospital, Beacon, New York, Respondent.

United States District Court S. D. New York.

July 21, 1964.

Arthur A. Snyder, New York City, for petitioner.

Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen. of New York, Isadore Siegel, New York City, of counsel, for respondent.

EDELSTEIN, District Judge.

Petitioner, an inmate of the Matteawan State Hospital for "insane criminals," N.Y.Correction Law, McKinney's Consol.Laws, c. 43, § 400¹ has petitioned this court for a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2242 (1952). Petitioner is presently confined as an insane person pursuant to an order of commitment issued by the Supreme Court of Kings County on June 24, 1957, and pursuant to an order of transfer issued by the Department of Mental Hygiene of the State of New York on January 14, 1958. The transfer order transferred petitioner from Creedmoor State Hospital, the place of her June 24, 1957, confinement, to Matteawan State Hospital. Both the commitment and transfer order were issued pursuant to §§ 870 and 872 of the New York Code of Criminal Procedure. These sections, more fully explained infra, prescribe New York's statutory scheme for the determination of the mental competency of criminal defendants and the administrative procedure for their commitment and subsequent transfer.

The procedural sequence leading to petitioner's commitment and her ultimate transfer was initiated upon her appearance on March 14, 1957, in the City Magistrate's Court, New York County, Felony Part, on the charge of felonious assault. The Magistrate found that "there was reasonable ground to believe that such defendant is in such state of idiocy, imbecility or insanity that she is incapable of understanding the charge or proceeding or of making her defense * * *" N.Y.Code of Crim.Proc. § 870,² and ordered her committed for a mental examination. An examination by two psychiatrists designated pursuant to § 872³ and § 659⁴ of the Code of Criminal Procedure resulted in their unanimous finding that petitioner was mentally ill and in need of care and treatment. In due course, petitioner was committed to Creedmoor pursuant to the order of the Kings County Supreme Court, and was subsequently administratively transferred from Creedmoor to Matteawan.

Petitioner's complaints of constitutional deprivation extend to every stage of the proceedings held herein. Her first attack is upon the proceedings held in the City Magistrate's Court. As to these proceedings, she contends that the committing magistrate had no basis or record for ordering her to be committed for a sanity examination pursuant to § 870 because the magistrate could not have had reasonable ground to believe that she was insane. She further complains that her commitment hearing in the Kings County Supreme Court was a perfunctory one and she emphasizes that she was not given an opportunity to rebut the testimony of the examining psychiatrists and was therefore deprived of Due Process as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Petitioner also contends that she was denied Due Process of Law by the alleged refusal of her custodians at Creedmoor to mail out her petition seeking a review by a jury of her certification, as provided for by § 76, N.Y.Mental Hygiene Law.⁵ Additionally, she urges that the portion of § 872 of the Code of Criminal Procedure⁶ which authorized her transfer to Matteawan without a hearing, is unconstitutional under both the Due Process and the Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. In expanding on this claim, she contends that the statute providing the State with the authority to transfer her by administrative order of the Commissioner deprived her of the notice and hearing which is indispensable to the fulfillment of the constitutional standards of Due Process owing to a transferee. In amplification of her Equal Protection argument, petitioner contends that the summary transfer provision of § 872 creates an arbitrary and capricious classification. She points out that mental patients who are committed pursuant to § 872 of the Code of Criminal Procedure are not provided with a hearing relative to their transfer to Matteawan. In contradistinction to her status, petitioner points out that patients whose commitments do not arise out of a criminal charge but who are committed under the provisions of §§ 74, 76 of the Mental Hygiene Law are provided with notice and hearing upon their transfer to Matteawan. N.Y. Mental Hygiene Law § 85.⁷ This alleged "so-called" preference of the "non-criminally committed" patient over those patients such as petitioner, who are criminal defendants, is asserted by petitioner to be unconstitutional because it is invidious, irrational and without justification. To support its contention that the petitioner's temporary commitment for observation and her subsequent commitment and transfer are valid, the State has submitted the following: copies of the proceedings and orders in the City Magistrate's Court and the Kings County Court, the stenographic court transcripts together with copies of hospital records containing entries up to and including July 30, 1963, as well as the correspondence between the Department of Mental Hygiene and the Department of Correction concerning petitioner's January 14, 1958 transfer. The facts which appear from this record are as follows:

On May 13, 1957, petitioner was arrested in New York City and the next day was charged with having committed a felonious assault on one Sam Smith by means of stabbing him in the back with a long-bladed kitchen knife. This was a case of mistaken identity. Petitioner had been lying in wait for her intended victim, a judge who had ordered the dismissal of an $8,000,000 civil suit brought by her against several state officials and judges, in which she alleged that they had "conspired" to deprive her of her constitutional rights by committing her to Harlem Valley State Hospital in 1947.

On May 14, 1957, petitioner, represented by private counsel, appeared in Magistrate's Court in New York City to answer the charge of felonious assault. The stenographic record reveals that during a discussion between court and counsel concerning petitioner's continued need for certain medication taken from her by the arresting officer⁸ petitioner stated to the court that the medication "was a special treatment by a specialist who has just discovered a new treatment * * *" and that the medication was "to fill up the holes in my bone structure to try to do something for the eroded tissues of the cells of the nervous system." Included among the photostatic copies of the Magistrate Court's proceedings submitted by the State is a letter dated May 14, 1957, from the physician on duty at the House of Detention to the Attending Physician at Bellevue Hospital concerning petitioner, which reads as follows:

"Dear Doctor:

"Please admit this inmate who arrived at the House of Detention this evening. She threatened to commit suicide since arrival at the House of Detention for Women and appears to be living in a world of her own, is fully occupied with ideas of persecution, feels that people are against her and shows some grimaces, smiling pitifully at others.

"She needs mental observation urgently for her own safety. X-ray of left fifth finger is indicated.

"Thanking you for your cooperation.

E. Hahn, M.D Physician on Duty"

The Magistrate's Court's file also contains an order by the Honorable Jack Nicoll, committing the petitioner to Kings County Hospital for a mental examination for a period of observation not to exceed 60 days, based on the court's reasonable belief in the defendant's insanity and her incapability of understanding the charges or proceedings so as to make a defense. See Code of Crim.Proc. § 870, supra. The commitment was consented to as evidenced by a handwritten notation in the margin of the order: "Consented to by Jacob Friedman, Esq., Att'y for defendant. J. Nicoll (signature)." Thereafter, pursuant to § 872, the director of the Kings County Hospital notified the Presiding Magistrate of the Felony Part of the Magistrate's Court that the patient had been carefully examined, found to be mentally ill, and certified to Creedmoor via Kings County Hospital.

Then, pursuant to the procedure prescribed for the mental examination of committed criminal defendants, two qualified psychiatrists were appointed to determine petitioner's mental condition. N.Y.Code of Crim.Proc. § 659, supra note 4. On May 15, 1957, these physicians executed the affidavit required by the statute, i. e., that they would faithfully and impartially inquire into the matter of the mental condition of the petitioner and render their report as to whether she was in such a state of idiocy and insanity that she was incapable of understanding the charges against her. N.Y.Code of Crim.Proc. §§ 660, 661.⁹ The appointed psychiatrists made the requisite examination and rendered a written report dated May 28, 1957. These examiners, after observing her, concluded, inter alia, that the petitioner showed a tendency to injure herself, to injure others, to be "potentially dangerous." Their diagnosis of her mental illness was "schizophrenic reaction — paranoid type." N.Y.Code of Crim.Proc. § 662.¹⁰ Further examinations by these psychiatrists on June 7, 1957, June 14, 1957, and June 21, 1957, found petitioner's mental condition unimproved and unchanged.

On May 28, 1957, the Administrative Assistant of the Kings County Hospital, pursuant to § 872 supra, filed a petition in the Supreme Court of Kings County praying that the court enter an order under § 872 of the Code of Criminal Procedure certifying the petitioner to an institution for the care and treatment of the mentally ill. The affidavits of service and the certificate of personal service, which are part of the record herein, plainly indicate that...