152 So. 644 | Miss. | 1934
Dr. M.J.L. Hoye, superintendent of the East Mississippi Insane Hospital at Meridian, sued out a writ of habeas corpus seeking to recover the custody of Roland Eatman, an alleged escape from said East Mississippi Insane Hospital, and who was in jail in Clarksdale, Coahoma county, Mississippi, under an indictment charging him with a felony. It was alleged by Dr. Hoye that Eatman had been adjudged to be insane, and ordered to be confined in said East Mississippi Insane Hospital by the chancery court of Lauderdale county, in 1927, and that he escaped from said institution in April, 1928, and that the petitioner had not discharged Eatman; that he is still insane; and that petitioner is entitled to the custody of Eatman. Dr. Hoye testified as a witness, saying that, while Eatman was suffering from psychopathic delinquency, and given to criminal tendencies, and not being able to resist temptation to commit crime, he was not properly an insane person, and that he was not properly a subject for the penitentiary either, but as the state had no provision for caring for such persons, it is necessary that they be restrained, and that Eatman should be awarded to his custody. The hospital records show a notation that Eatman was discharged in March, 1928, but Dr. Hoye testified that he had never discharged him, and that from time to time during the period of escape and the suing out of the writ, he (Dr. Hoye) knew where Eatman was, but made no effort to retake him, and that no warrant was issued for that purpose until just prior to the suing out of the writ of habeas corpus, when, at the instance of an attorney employed by the father of Roland Eatman, said warrant was issued. Dr. Hoye further testified that Eatman was very troublesome and nobody wanted him.
It is shown by the evidence in the case that Eatman had escaped from the hospital at Jackson, Mississippi, having been transferred from Meridian, and went into Louisiana; committed a crime there, and was confined *116 to the state institution for the insane in Louisiana, but that he was afterwards adjudged to be sane and was discharged from the Louisiana institution. It appears that he was reconsigned to the Hospital for the Insane at Jackson, Mississippi, some time prior to the suing out of the writ of habeas corpus, and was kept under medical observation there, and on an inquiry before the medical staff of said institution, he was discharged and a certificate of his discharge and his sanity was certified to the sheriff of Coahoma county, at Clarksdale. The assistant superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane at Jackson, Mississippi, who is also chief of the medical staff there, and is an expert psychiatrist, testified that Eatman is not insane; that he knew the nature and consequences of his acts, but claimed that he could not resist committing crime; that Eatman was disposed to crime and did not restrain himself; and that there are many persons inside and outside institutions for the insane similarly defective, but not insane.
The habeas corpus was heard before the circuit judge in the district in which Clarksdale is situated, and, after hearing the evidence, the judge dismissed the habeas corpus and held that Eatman was sane. It was also found, as a fact, that Eatman had been discharged from the Insane Hospital at Jackson, and that the action of the superintendent of the Insane Hospital at Meridian amounted to a discharge.
Dr. Hoye further testified that he frequently permitted patients to leave the institution and to remain away, where they did not receive adverse reports within three months after their discharge, and that they treated their patients on parol as discharged unless they found some evidence that such patients were still insane, after ninety days.
It appears that Dr. Hoye was proceeding under the theory that Eatman having been adjudged insane by the chancery court, and not having been discharged by the *117 authorities of the Insane Hospital at Meridian, the circuit court did not have the jurisdiction to withhold the custody of said Eatman from him.
It will be noted that the commitment was made in 1927, and that Dr. Hoye had not had custody of Eatman since 1928, and from the evidence it appears that the trial judge had the right to believe that Eatman was transferred from Meridian to Jackson on account of his escaping and returning home to his people, who lived in Meridian. It is shown by the evidence that after his escape from the Meridian Hospital for the Insane he had been adjudged to be sane in a judicial proceeding in Louisiana, and discharged from an insane hospital there, and that he had been examined by a medical staff of the Insane Hospital at Jackson, Mississippi, and had been declared to be sane.
The effect of the judgment of the chancery court is merely to adjudge that he was insane at the time of the hearing in that court. The fact that he was so adjudged can be introduced as evidence of his subsequent insanity, but it is not conclusive. When the chancery court commits a party to the insane hospital, it does not pass upon his right to a discharge, but, under the statute (Code 1930, sec. 4583), the authorities of the insane hospital pass judgment upon that question, and if they adjudge a patient to be sane, or to have recovered his sanity, the patient is discharged. See Ervin v. State (Miss.),
It will thus be seen that adjudication as to insanity at one time is not conclusive of insanity at another time. The matter is open to inquiry. It is well known that people recover their sanity, and also that people may be partially insane. In Smith v. State,
We think the court was warranted, upon the evidence, in finding that Eatman was sane, and that the conduct of the superintendent of the East Mississippi Hospital for the Insane at Meridian, who, with knowledge of his whereabouts, did not seek to retake the alleged escape for more than three months, was equivalent to a discharge.
However, it appears from the decision in Hawie v. Hawie,
In the case at bar, Eatman was not in the custody of the authorities of any state hospital for the insane, but had been legally discharged therefrom, and was in the custody of the circuit court under an indictment for a felony, and that court had the right and the power to pass upon the question as to whether or not he was sane.
It follows that the judgment rendered was correct, and it is affirmed.
Affirmed. *120