Lynch v. Overholser/Dissent Clark

Mr. Justice CLARK, dissenting.

Eighty-seven years ago, Chief Justice Waite in speaking of the function of this Court said: 'Our province is to decide what the law is, not to declare what it should be. * *  * If the law is wrong, it ought to be changed; but the power for that is not with us.' Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, 178, 22 L.Ed. 627 (1875). This holding followed as long a line of cases as it preceded. Today the Court seems to me to do what this long-established rule of statutory interpretation forbids. With sophisticated frankness it admits that the District's statute '(b)y its plain terms * *  * directs confinement in a mental hospital of any criminal defendant *  *  * who is 'acquitted solely on the ground' that his offense was committed while he was mentally irresponsible, and forecloses the trial judge from exercising any discretion in this regard.' Despite these 'plain terms' the Court writes into the statute an exception, i.e., it applies 'only to criminal defendants who have interposed a defense of insanity *  *  * .' It does this despite the fact that the petitioner here apparently made no such contention in the trial court. Indeed, though he had counsel at the time of his trial in Municipal Court on two charges of passing bad checks, he made no attempt to appeal from the refusal of the court to accept his guilty plea and its finding that he was 'not guilty on the ground that he was insane at the time of the commission of the offense.' After being committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital for treatment for some six months, he filed this habeas corpus application. Today's action may have the effect of setting him free though he makes no claim that he was sane at the time of trial or is so at this time. In fact, the last doctor's report in the record shows him to be suffering from a manic depressive psychosis from which though he 'appears to be in an early stage of recovery' it is 'possible that he may have further lapses * *  * .' It further states that it 'would be advisable for him to have a period of further treatment in a psychiatric hospital.' The order today risks bringing that to an end.

The case therefore presents the complex and challenging problem of criminal incompetency with which the people of the District of Columbia have for years been plagued. The Congress in 1955 adopted the present statute to meet what it called the 'serious and dangerous imbalance * *  * in favor of the accused and against the public' which was created in part by the rule in Durham v. United States, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 228, 214 F.2d 862, 45 A.L.R.2d 1430 (1954). S.Rep.No.1170, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. 3 (1955). The statute, in my view, is not only designed to protect the public from the criminally incompetent but at the same time has the humanitarian purpose of affording hospitalization for those in need of treatment. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance to this community. Moreover, it has its counterpart in varying degrees in 36 of our States and in the federal system as well, many of which will be affected by this decision. In my view the Court undermines the purposes of these statutes; places a premium on pleas of guilty by defendants who were insane when they acted, made either pro se or through their attorneys; and thereby forces the conviction of innocent persons. And all of this is done in the face of the admitted 'plain terms' of the mandate of Congress under the guise that the Court's holding 'is more consistent with the general pattern of laws governing the confinement of the mentally ill in the District of Columbia.' I believe, however, that the Congress in adopting § 24-301(d) said what it meant and that it meant what it said. I regret that the Court has seen fit to repeal the 'plain terms' of this statute and write its own policy into the District's law. Especially do I deplore its suggestion of doubt as to its constitutionality. In the light of the cases this is chimerical. Finding myself with reference to the opinion like Mrs. Gummidge, 'a lone, lorn creetur' and every think (about it) goes contrairy with me,' I respectfully dissent.

It is well to point out first what is not involved here. First, this is not a civil commitment case, although this Court attempts to force one upon the parties. In providing the safeguards of D.C.Code § 21-310 as to the ordinary civil commitment of persons claimed to be insane the Congress clearly acted in protection of those who were not charged with criminal offenses or who had never exhibited any criminal proclivities. In protecting the public from the criminally incompetent it could with reason act with less caution. See Overholser v. Leach, 103 U.S.App.D.C. 289, 291, 257 F.2d 667, 669, and Kenstrip v. Cranor, 39 Wash.2d 403, 405, 235 P.2d 467, 468. In criminal cases the person could be held in custody in any event and humanitarian principles require his hospitalization where needed. Nor are the procedures for release involved here. Petitioner has not sought his release under the statute. The procedure, however, is simple and effective, i.e., a doctor's certificate recommending release filed with the court is sufficient. If the doctor refuses such certificate, the inmate may seek to prove his sanity on habeas corpus. Here, however, no claim of sanity has been made.

Nor does this case involve commitment under D.C.Code § 24 301(a). The first provision of that section largely has to do with cases before trial. The accused is entitled to a speedy trial. He may be acquitted. Hence his commitment to a hospital would delay the effectuation of these rights. The Congress, therefore, provided safeguards, i.e., he might object to such a commitment and the consequent delay of his trial. But here-under § 24-301(d) the accused has already had his trial.

Finally, the fallacy in the Court's position is clearly apparent when in an attempt to justify its holding on practical grounds it says that an accused who pleads guilty and is sentenced may thereafter be transferred from the prison to a hospital and the assurances of hospitalization provided by § 24-301(d) thus afforded. The short of this is that if the accused pleads guilty and is sentenced he then may suffer in addition to his conviction the same fate as petitioner suffers here. With due deference, this is a most cruel position. The accused, though innocent of the crime because of insanity, pleads guilty in hopes of a short jail sentence. He then has the stigma of criminal conviction permanently on his record. During or after sentence he is transferred to the hospital where he may be released at the end of his sentence but if found not cured at that time may still be subject to further custody and treatment. D.C.Code, § 24-302; 18 U.S.C. § 4247, 18 U.S.C.A. § 4247.

It has long been generally acknowledged that justice does not permit punishing persons with certain mental disorders for committing acts offending against the public peace and order. But insane offenders are no less a menace to society for being held irresponsible, and reluctance to impose blame on such individuals does not require their release. The community has an interest in protecting the public from antisocial acts whether committed by sane or by insane persons. We have long recognized that persons who because of mental illness are dangerous to themselves or to others may be restrained against their will in the interest of public safety and to seek their rehabilitation, even if they have done nothing proscribed by the criminal law. The insane who have committed acts otherwise criminal are a still greater object of concern, as they have demonstrated their risk to society. In an attempt to deal with these problems, Congress has enacted § 24 301(d), which requires the court to order a person who has been acquitted of a criminal offense solely on the ground that he was insane at the time of its commission, to be confined in a hospital for the mentally ill.

Commitment to an institution of persons acquitted of crime because of insanity is no novelty. At common law, before 1800, the trial judge had power to order detention in prison of an acquitted defendant he considered dangerous because of insanity. Hadfield, acquitted of attempted regicide in 1800 as insane, was remanded to an English prison because his future confinement was 'absolutely necessary for the safety of society,' 27 How.St.Tr. 1281, 1354. Parliament responded by providing for automatic commitment to a mental institution rather than prison in felony cases in which the accused was acquitted on grounds of insanity, 39 & 40 Geo. III, c. 94, and mandatory commitment has been the rule in misdemeanor cases as well in England since 1883. 46 & 47 Vict., c. 38. An accused acquitted on insanity grounds in Massachusetts was remanded to the sheriff for continued custody as early as 1810, Commonwealth v. Meriam, 7 Mass. 168, and in the District of Columbia, the judge being convinced that 'it would be extremely dangerous to permit him to be at large,' in 1835, United States v. Lawrence, 26 Fed.Cas.No.15,577. The District of Columbia Code of 1901, 31 Stat. 1189, 1340, authorized the trial judge, in his discretion and without further hearing, to forward the defendant's name to an administrator, who, in his discretion, again without hearing, might order commitment. Most defendants acquited on insanity grounds were committed under this rule. At the present time statutes provide for mandatory commitment of persons acquitted by reason of insanity in 12 States and the Virgin Islands as well as in England and the District of Columbia. Six States permit commitment in the discretion of the trial judge. Eighteen more provide for mandatory or discretionary commitment if the trial judge finds that the defendant's insanity continues or that his discharge would be dangerous to the public peace. In 10 States and in Puerto Rico, mandatory commitment follows a like finding by the trial jury or by a second jury. In three States standards for civil commitment must be met. Only Tennessee makes no provision for such cases. Many of these laws providing for commitment of acquitted defendants are by no means new see the tabulation in Glueck, Mental Disorder and the Criminal Law, 394-399 (1925), and with very few exceptions such laws have been upheld by state courts against constitutional attacks. The Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute contains a provision for mandatory commitment. ALI Model Penal Code Proposed Final Draft No. 1, § 4.08. See also comments on this section in id., Tentative Draft No. 4, p. 199. In practice, it has been said despite the varying provisions in the several jurisdictions that acquitted defendants are 'nearly always' committed. Note, 68 Yale L.J. 293.

The Court does not deny that petitioner was tried for an offense and acquitted solely on the ground of insanity at the time of its commission. It argues, however, that the procedure of § 24 301(d), as applied to a criminal defendant who has not pleaded insanity, is inconsistent with the whole scheme of procedural safeguards provided for commitment of other individuals to mental hospitals in the District of Columbia and therefore could not have been intended by Congress. But the procedure of § 24-301(d) applies only to defendants found not guilty solely on the ground of insanity. That is, unlike defendants committed before or during the trial, see State ex rel. Smilack v. Bushong, 159 Ohio St. 259, 111 N.E.2d 918, all persons committed under § 24-301(d) either have been found after trial to have committed the act itself, or, as here, have conceded that they committed it. It is this adjudication, or this admission, that serves to explain and, in Congress' opinion, to justify different treatment for such individuals. Overholser v. Leach, 103 U.S.App.D.C. 289, 257 F.2d 667. Whether we would have drawn this distinction is not the question; it suffices that the distinction was drawn and is not so untenable that we can say Congress could not treasonably have drawn it. And, insofar as § 24-301(a) applies also to those who have been tried and found guilty, it is no more inconsistent with mandatory commitment where the defendant has not pleaded insanity than where he has done so. In either case Congress wanted commitment if the judge found the accused insane or if the jury entertained a reasonable doubt.

I agree with the Court that the present § 24-301(d) was the response of Congress to the decision in Durham v. United States, supra. That decision substituted for the McNaghten rule the simple question whether the 'unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect.' 94 U.S.App.D.C., at 240-241, 214 F.2d, at 874-875. In amending the then § 24-301(d), Congress sought 'to protect the public against the immediate unconditional release of accused persons who have been found not responsible for a crime solely by reason of insanity * *  * .' H.R.Rep. No. 892, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. 3, 13 (1955); S.Rep. No. 1170, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. 3; 101 Cong.Rec. 9258, 12229. This danger of improvident release, so crucial in the eyes of the Congress, has in fact inhibited the adoption of the Durham rule by other courts in jurisdictions where no mandatory commitment statute is available. Sauer v. United States, 241 F.2d 640 (C.A.9th Cir.); United States v. Smith, 5 U.S.C.M.A. 314, 329, 17 C.M.R. 314, 329; United States v. Currens, 3 Cir., 290 F.3d 751, 776-777, dissenting opinion; Sobeloff, Insanity and the Criminal Law: From McNaghten to Durham, and Beyond, 41 A.B.A.J. 793, 879 (1955).

This is not to say, however, that the sole purpose of § 24 301(d) is commitment as a protection to the public. The policy of the law also includes assurance of rehabilitation for those so committed. Ragsdale v. Overholser, 108 U.S.App.D.C. 308, 312, 281 F.2d 943, 947. The common law permitted an acquitted incompetent to be confined in the District of Columbia even before 1901. United States v. Lawrence, supra. The desire of the Congress to satisfy its interest in the rehabilitation of an incompetent defendant brought on the original statute authorizing commitment to a mental institution. The 1955 amendment, here under attack, was designed only to strengthen the safeguards to the public safety in the light of the intervening Durham rule. There can be no question that the interest of a free society is better served by commitment to hospitals than by imprisonment of the criminally incompetent. While, as the Court points out, transfer after confinement permits treatment during sentence, it is not mandatory, and it may be interrupted before completion and the patient set free. Almost every newspaper reports depredations of the criminally insane who unfortunately for themselves and the safety of others have been released on the public. It was the purpose of the statute to prevent this occurrence whether or not the accused pleads not guilty because of insanity. A defendant's plea neither proves nor affects his guilt or his sanity. To make the commitment procedure effective only on the defendant's option limits the statute's protection of the public, forces an unfortunate choice on attorneys appointed to represent defendants, convicts those who are innocent by reason of insanity and deprives them of the treatment afforded by a humanitarian public policy. See Ragsdale v. Overholser, 108 U.S.App.D.C. 308, 281 F.2d 943. The Court says that this can all be done through another trial under civil commitment procedures, but this is but to disagree with the policy of Congress rather than the Court of Appeals which has upheld the statute. As mentioned, supra, the civil procedures are entirely insufficient where criminal acts are involved. The criterion of § 24-301(d)-merely whether there is a reasonable doubt that the accused was capable in law of committing the offense-is a far cry from the test of civil commitment, where it must be proven to the satisfaction of the court that the accused is actually insane. The requirement that the petitioner here go free unless civil commitment proceedings be filed and he be adjudged insane creates a serious risk that petitioner will again be turned loose on an unsuspecting public to carry on his check-writing proclivities and perhaps much worse. His is but one example that will inevitably follow in the wake of this decision today.

The Court disclaims the intention of granting petitioner an absolute right to plead guilty. Such a right would be contra to our concept of the fair administration of justice as exemplified in Rule 9 of the Criminal Rules of the Municipal Court of the District of Columbia, which was lifted verbatim from Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. It provides explicitly that '(t)he Court may refuse to accept a plea of guilty.' And it further prohibits the acceptance of a guilty plea without the court's 'first determining that the plea is made voluntarily with undertanding of the nature of the charge.' The opinion today acknowledges that the trial judge need not accept the plea of guilty when, as here, he has in his hands a certificate from competent doctors that the petitioner was and remains insane and in need of treatment. The Court emphasizes again and again that the petitioner never at any time during his trial on the check charges suggested that 'he is, or ever was, mentally irresponsible.' Of course he did not; he preferred to go to jail for a short period. But the right of a court to refuse a plea of guilty is based on the principle that in a free society it is as important that the court make certain that the innocent go free as it is that the guilty be punished. This the court did here and decided that a just disposition of the case would not permit the entry of the plea of guilty. that the evidence of insanity was sufficient is not questioned. As this Court has often held, the judge 'is not a mere moderator, but is the governor of the trial for the purpose of assuring its proper conduct * *  * .' Quercia v. United States, 289 U.S. 466, 469, 53 S.Ct. 698, 77 L.Ed. 1321 (1933); Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 82, 62 S.Ct. 457, 470, 86 L.Ed. 680, (1942). In the words of the late and revered Learned Hand, 'he is charged to see that the law is properly administered, and it is a duty which he cannot discharge by remaining inert.' United States v. Marzano, 2 Cir., 149 F.2d 923, 925. And here in the District of Columbia its court of last resort, the Court of Appeals has held that the trial judge is required to set aside jury findings of sanity where the record shows a reasonable doubt. Isaac v. United States, 109 U.S.App.D.C. 34, 284 F.2d 168. This is only further indication of his duty to seek a just disposition of every case, which justified, if it did not require, the rejection of the guilty plea here.

It was also unquestionably proper for the prosecutor to introduce testimony of insanity. His function, this Court said in Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629, 633, 79 L.Ed. 1314, is to act as 'the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty * *  * whose interest *  *  * in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.'

The Court denies none of this. Yet, although it stresses that the purpose of § 24-301(d) was to protect the public from the release of dangerous persons acquitted as insane, and although it concedes that a defendant may be acquitted as insane without pleading insanity, the Court requires a finding of present insanity in order to commit in such a case. To me neither the words nor the policy of the law supports this; I cannot believe Congress thought only people who claim to be crazy are dangerous enough to be confined without further findings.

The Court did not reach the constitutional issue. Its failure so to do is, I believe, a 'disingenuous evasion,' to borrow a phrase from Mr. Justice Cardozo in Moore Ice Cream Co. v. Rose, 289 U.S. 373, 379, 53 S.Ct. 620, 622, 77 L.Ed. 1265 (1933). The Court should not, as I have said, rewrite a statute merely to escape upholding it against easily parried constitutional objections. I would uphold the statute. I shall not go into details, however, since the Court does not deal with the issue. In short, petitioner has no constitutional right to choose jail confinement instead of hospitalization. It is said that automatic hospitalization without a finding of present insanity renders the statute invalid but, as I see it, Congress may reasonably prefer the safety of compulsory hospitalization subject to the release procedures offered by the statute and through habeas corpus. It is said that these release procedures are too strict, placing the burden on the petitioner. But it appears reasonable once a jury or a judge has found a reasonable doubt as to the sanity of a man who has admittedly passed bad checks to require a doctor's certificate to authorize release, and failing such to require proof of the doctor's error in refusing to issue it. There is no reason to believe that the doctors or, for that matter, the judge would be improperly motivated. Release is by no means illusory. In the past six years over 25% of those committed have been released. It must be remembered that here the constitutionality of § 24-301(d) is at issue, not the wisdom of its enactment. That is for Congress. So long as its choice meets due process standards it cannot be overturned. The problem which faced Congress was the reconciliation of the opportunity for release of the accused through a judicial hearing with the vital public interest, deference to the views of institutional authorities and a decent regard for the hospitalization and cure of the accused. The balance struck by Congress, in my view, meets the essential requirements of due process.

In any event, petitioner does not claim that he is now sane. He has made no effort to secure his release on the ground of being cured. Surely he should be required to make such an effort before asking the Court to strike down the statute on that ground. Moreover, if the burden is too heavy, rather than opening the hospital doors to all persons committed under the statute, it would be more fitting to rewrite the release procedures by shifting the burden to the hospital authorities to prove the necessity for further hospitalization. The Court has not hesitated to use a similar device in another area. Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 82 S.Ct. 917, 8 L.Ed.2d 21. I would also think the Court would prefer to do this rather than create a loophole for those who seek to plead guilty. In so doing, the Court would not force the badge of criminal conviction on innocent persons but would afford them the benefit of treatment, safeguarded by entirely fair and reasonable release procedures, and at the same time afford the public protection from those unfortunates among us that know not what they do. The Court has chosen not to reverse the burden of proof; perhaps the Congress will consider doing so.

I dissent.