Sealed v. SealedSealed v. Sealed
SEALED APPELLEE, Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
SEALED APPELLANT, Defendant-Appellant.
USDC No. 4:20-CV-1344
Before CLEMENT, HAYNES, and OLDHAM, Circuit Judges.
EDITH BROWN CLEMENT:
Appellant contends that the district court lacked statutory authority to order her indefinite civil commitment pursuant to
I.
Appellant suffers from bipolar schizoaffective disorder, a mental condition which, among other symptoms, can cause persecutory delusions. Appellant‘s delusions led her to believe that the federal government—specifically, fоrmer President Barack Obama—was conspiring with hip-hop mogul Jay-Z and other members of the music industry to harm Appellant and her family. To send a message to these government conspirators, on the morning of August 30, 2019, Appellant threw a Molotov cocktail into the lobby of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office in Oakland Park, Florida.
A.
Appellant was indicted in the Southern District of Florida, and the parties jointly requested an evaluation of whether she was competent to stand trial. On December 20, 2019, the court determined, based on medical evaluation, that Appellant was “presently not competent to stand trial” and therefore ordered her committed to the custody of the Attorney General for hospitalization and treatment pursuant to
That statute requires a court to commit a mentally incompetent criminal defendant to the custody of the Attorney General for hospitalization and treatment:
(1) for such a reasonable period of time, not to exceed four months, as is necessary to determine whether there is a substantial probability that in the foreseeable future he will attain the capacity to permit the proceedings to go forward; and
(2) for an additional reasonable period of time until—
(A) his mental condition is so improved that trial may proceed, if the court finds that there is a substantial probability that within such additional period of time he will attain the capacity to permit the proceedings to go forward; or
(B) the pending charges against him are disposed of according to law;
whichever is earlier.
In accordance with the terms of
On September 4, 2020—four days before the examination-and-treatment period of the court‘s second commitment order was set to expire—Appellant‘s psychologist submitted another evaluation which concluded that Appellant was still not competent to stand trial and that “there [was] no substantial likelihood that [she could] be restored to competency within a reasonable time.” The court promptly convened a conference with the parties on September 17, during which they discussed the likelihood
B.
On December 17, 2020, the government filed a dangerousness certification in the Northern District of Texas along with a petition that Appellant be civilly committed pursuant to
Appellant appealed, and we vacated and remanded on the basis that the magistrate judge had not been authorized by the district court to issue a dispositive order. Sealed Appellee v. Sealed Appellant, No. 21-10427, 2022 WL 597249 (5th Cir. Feb. 28, 2022) (per curiam). On remand, the district court construed the magistrate judge‘s order as a report and recommendation and, after further briefing from the parties, adopted it. On Novеmber 1, 2022, the district court ordered Appellant civilly committed pursuant to
II.
We review the presented question of statutory construction de novo. See Sealed Appellee 1 v. Sealed Appellant 1, 767 F.3d 418, 421 (5th Cir. 2013).2
A.
Our inquiry into whether Appellant was still “committed to the custody of the Attorney General pursuant to section 4241(d)” on December 17, 2020 begins and ends with the unambiguous language of the statutory text. See BedRoc Ltd. v. United States, 541 U.S. 176, 183 (2004). Section 4241(d) sets forth two time-periods during which a criminal defendant is committed tо the custody of the Attorney General. First, under subsection (d)(1), the individual may be committed for up to four months “to determine whether there is a substantial probability that in the foreseeable future he will attain the capacity to permit the proceedings to go forward.” Then, under subsection (d)(2), the individual remains committed “for an additional reasonable period of time” until either “(A) his mental condition is so improved that trial may proceed,” or “(B) the pending charges against him are disposed of according to law,” whichever is earliеr. Thus, under the plain language of the statute, even after the four-month period set forth in subsection (d)(1) expired, Appellant remained “committed” under subsection (d)(2) until one of three triggering events occurred: (A) she was rendered competent to stand trial, (B) her criminаl charges were disposed of, or (C) the duration of her commitment became unreasonable. No such triggering event occurred.
First, Appellant was never rendered competent to stand trial. To be sure, there were initially hopeful signs that the treatment fоr her mental condition would prove effective. In fact, on April 23, 2020, her treating psychologist told the court that there was “a substantial likelihood that she could be restored to competency” with further treatment. But that additional treatment was unfortunately unsuccessful, and on September 4, 2020, the treating psychologist informed the court that his professional opinion had changed and there was “no substantial likelihood that [Appellant could] be restored to competency within a reasonable period of time.”
Second, Appellant‘s criminal charges were still pending when the dangerousness certificate was filed on December 17, 2020. And third, Appellant does not argue that her three months of additional confinement between September and December 2020 was of unrеasonable duration.4 Accordingly, Appellant remained in the custody of the Attorney General pursuant to
B.
Despite presenting this case as a “question of statutory interpretation” in her opening brief, Appellant claims in her reply brief that, actually, the language of the statute “is beside the point.” Instead, says Appellant, the second commitment order “set a four-month limit on the second period of hospitalization” irrespective of the statutory limits. We disagree.
The district court‘s May 8, 2020 order says nothing about limiting the total duration of Appellant‘s second hospitalization to four months. Rather, it simply reiterates—nearly verbatim—the four-month limitation on the duration of the initial examination-аnd-treatment period under
That the district court did not intend to set a “hard limit” on the duration of Appellant‘s second commitment is evident in the subsequent proceedings bеfore that very court. Surely, if the Appellant‘s continued hospitalization was in violation of the district court‘s order, the judge would have said something about it. So, too, would have Appellant‘s criminal counsel. But when the four-month period came and went, the judge аnd counsel—operating with full knowledge that Appellant remained institutionalized—simply held a status conference and scheduled a final competency hearing for November with nary a word to suggest that anyone believed Appellant‘s continued confinеment to be in violation of the court‘s commitment order.
IV.
Because Appellant‘s continued hospitalization complied with the plain language of
AFFIRMED.