73 A.D.2d 654 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1979
In a habeas corpus proceeding, petitioner appeals from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County, entered October 4, 1979, which dismissed the proceeding and remanded petitioner to the custody of respondent. Judgment reversed, on the law, without costs or disbursements, and petitioner is remanded to the custody of the director of Kingsboro Psychiatric Center. Petitioner was charged with several serious felony counts in an indictment arising out of a double murder in Brooklyn in December, 1976. After his arraignment in January, 1977 petitioner attempted suicide in his cell. An examination to determine his competency to stand trial was ordered pursuant to CPL article 730. The examiners reported in February, 1977 that petitioner, though suffering from an "adjustment reaction of adolescence with anxiety”, was fit to proceed. A second examination was ordered in April, 1977, with a contrary result, two examiners concluding that petitioner suffered from an "unspecified psychosis” and was unfit to proceed, while a third examiner disagreed, characterizing petitioner as a malingerer whose condition remained unchanged since the first examination. After a hearing, the court found petitioner unfit to proceed, and he was admitted on May 12, 1977 to Mid-Hudson Psychiatric Hospital. On May 18, 1978 an order was entered pursuant to CPL article 730 authorizing retention of the petitioner for an additional one year; a further two-year extension was granted in May, 1979. Subsequent to the entry of the latter order, petitioner moved for a hearing seeking a change of status pursuant to the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Jackson v Indiana (406 US 715). On July 12, 1979 the Supreme Court, Orange County, found no substantial likelihood that petitioner would become competent to stand trial in the foreseeable future and directed the hospital director to release petitioner or have him admitted pursuant to article 9 of the Mental Hygiene Law "in the same manner that any other civil patient” would be admitted. On July 23, 1979 petitioner was admitted as an involuntary patient on a two-physician certificate under article 9 of the Mental Hygiene Law (§ 9.27). He was transferred on September 6, 1979 to Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Kings County, which is a less restrictive institution. On September 20, 1979 (fewer than 60 days after his admission as an involuntary patient to a mental hygiene facility) petitioner left the Kingsboro facility without permission in