STATE EX REL. SCHOPF, Petitioner, v. SCHUBERT, Superintendent, Central State Hospital, Respondent
No. State 113
Supreme Court of Wisconsin
Argued September 29, 1969.---Decided February 6, 1970.
173 N. W. 2d 673
“... a declaration would be likely to create uncertainty as to the rights of an unascertainable number of officers and citizens who are not parties to this action. The statute justifies a declaration of rights only upon an existing state of facts.”
The demurrer must be sustained and the complaint dismissed.
By the Court.---Order reversed, with directions to dismiss the complaint.
For the respondent the cause was argued by Sverre O. Tinglum, assistant attorney general, with whom on the briefs were Robert W. Warren, attorney general, and William A. Platz, assistant attorney general.
WILKIE, J. Petitioner maintains that the circuit court for Marathon county, in committing petitioner to Central State Hospital under
Petitioner contends that
The petitioner here was acquitted under the ALI test of insanity as set forth in State v. Shoffner.2 Under that test, in order for the defendant to be successful in a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity plea, he assumes the burden of proving his mental incapacity at the time of committing the offense with which he is charged. This is a heavier burden than is faced under the M‘Naghten test as provided in Esser,3 wherein defendant merely had to be successful in raising a reasonable doubt as to his sanity---and the burden was on the state to overcome that doubt.
The contention here is that commitment of someone situated as petitioner, and the civil commitment of someone mentally ill under
There are few, if any, of these safeguards provided to someone who is committed in a criminal case after an acquittal by reason of insanity.
The petitioner relies on several recent cases for authority for his argument that the manner by which he was committed denied him equal protection of the laws since the procedure used was different from the procedure used to civilly commit a person pursuant to
In Baxstrom v. Herold,10 the United States Supreme Court decided that Baxstrom, a prisoner who had been placed in a mental hospital while serving a prison term, was denied equal protection of the laws by the operation of a New York statutory procedure whereby he was (1) civilly committed to a mental institution at the expiration of his sentence without the jury review available to all others civilly committed, and (2) administratively transferred, from a civil mental hospital to a functionally distinct institution for the dangerously insane without the judicial determination that he was dangerously mentally ill such as that afforded to all others so committed, except those about to terminate a prison sentence. The vice of this procedure was that it made an arbitrary classification with respect to persons entitled to a judicial hearing.
The denial of equal protection arose as a result of providing two different methods of civil commitment and with no reasonable basis for it.
In the instant case, the difference in procedure is not between persons civilly committed but rather the difference arises between civil commitment and criminal commitment after a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Thus, on this basis, Baxstrom can be distinguished from the instant situation.
In Bolton v. Harris,11 the circuit court of appeals for the District of Columbia was presented with the problem of different procedures used to commit persons civilly versus the automatic commitment of a person acquitted by reason of insanity.
In Bolton, the petitioner, who had successfully pleaded not guilty to a crime by reason of insanity was automatically committed under the provision of the District of Columbia Code, which provided in part:
“If any person tried ... for an offense ... is acquitted solely on the ground that he was insane at the time of its commission, the court shall order such person to be confined in a hospital for the mentally ill.”12
The petitioner, on appeal from a denial of habeas corpus, argued that he was denied equal protection of the laws because he was committed to a mental institution without benefit of the protections afforded those civilly committed under the District of Columbia‘s 1964 Hospitalization of the Mentally Ill Act. The court rea-
The court said:
”Baxstrom, Lally [(1966), 19 N. Y. 2d 27, 224 N. E. 2d 87], and Mullen [(D. C. Cir. 1967), 387 Fed. 2d 193] render [the automatic commitment section] constitutionally suspect because the subsection provides radically different procedures for patients acquitted by reason of insanity and for civilly committed patients.13
“...
“... It is true that persons acquitted by reason of insanity have committed criminal acts and that this fact may tend to show they meet the requirements for commitment, namely, illness and dangerousness. But it does not remove these requirements. Nor does it justify total abandonment of the procedures used in civil commitment proceedings to determine whether these same requirements have been satisfied. Hence persons found not guilty by reason of insanity must be given a judicial hearing with procedures substantially similar to those in civil commitment proceedings.”14
The reasoning of the Bolton court is erroneous. The equal protection clause disapproves only irrational and arbitrary classifications.15 The classification made by the legislature in the instant situation between civil commitment and criminal commitment is neither irrational nor arbitrary, and, in fact, is perfectly reasonable.
The petitioner, by establishing his mental incapacity under the ALI test, has justified the automatic commit-
The second issue raised by petitioner is whether his automatic commitment after a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity is a denial of due process of law because it is accomplished without a judicial determination of his mental condition at the time of the commitment. Essentially, the argument is that while Schopf may have been insane at the time of the commission of the crime, it does not necessarily follow that he was insane at the time of the verdict.
There is a twofold objective in dealing with prisoners who have been adjudicated not guilty by reason of insanity: (1) Therapy for the mental disease from which they were suffering at the time of the crime, and (2) proper custodial handling so that the community is protected from individuals who may be dangerous to other persons.17
Thus, if a person so adjudged no longer suffers from the mental disorder which excused him from criminal responsibility and is no longer dangerous (or likely to suffer a relapse) he should be released.
With this, the court has no quarrel. However, there is dispute as to what is required to satisfy the due process clause. Petitioner again relies on the case of Bolton v. Harris18 as authority for the proposition that commitment after a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity without a judicial determination of present sanity violates due process. In that case the court considered the section of the District of Columbia‘s Code which required
“... The more recent case of Specht v. Patterson [(1967), 386 U. S. 605, 87 Sup. Ct. 1209, 18 L. Ed. 2d 326] renders subsection (d) constitutionally suspect simply because the subsection fails to provide a hearing on present mental condition. In Specht, the Supreme Court held that a defendant convicted under Colorado law for ‘indecent liberties’ could not be given an indeterminate sentence under the Colorado Sex Offenders Act without a full hearing. It rejected the Tenth Circuit‘s contention that defendant was ‘afforded all the rights of due process at the time of trial,’ by pointing out that the imposition of an indeterminate sentence requires ‘a new finding of fact [that the person convicted constitutes a threat of bodily harm to the public] that was not an ingredient of the offense charged [at trial].’
“After acquittal by reason of insanity there is also need for a new finding of fact: The trial determined only that there was a reasonable doubt as to defendant‘s sanity in the past, present commitment is predicated on a finding of present insanity. Thus Specht would appear to require that this finding be made in a hearing.” (Bracketed material added in Bolton v. Harris.)19
The majority of this court are of the opinion that the procedures provided for the automatic commitment of prisoners under
Furthermore, in Bolton the court found that it was permissible for the prisoner to be detained for a reasonable period without a judicial determination of present mental condition. The purpose of this period of detention would be for examination. So, too, here the prisoner is sent to Central State Hospital, but with the right to petition for an examination the minute he arrives. Thus, this right creates a situation which is almost identical to the one provided in Bolton. In both situations the prisoner can be committed without a judicial determination of his present mental condition. In Bolton, this commitment is for a reasonable period for examination.
that he is not likely to have a recurrence of insanity or mental irresponsibility as will result in acts which but for insanity or mental irresponsibility would be crimes.”
Thus the majority of the court are satisfied that the Wisconsin procedure questioned here is not unconstitutional as a denial of due process of law.
A minority of the court, including Mr. Chief Justice HALLOWS, Mr. Justice HEFFERNAN, and the writer of this opinion, believe that the Wisconsin procedure does not meet the requirements of due process of law. The minority would construe the provisions of
By the Court.---Habeas corpus on the ground that petitioner‘s present commitment pursuant to
HALLOWS, C. J. (dissenting). I agree with the “internal dissent” of Mr. Justice WILKIE in the majority
The testimony may show that the insanity at the time of the commission of the act was such that the insanity did not carry over until the time of the trial, yet the majority opinion would incarcerate the defendant without a hearing. There have been cases where a person has not been tried for years after the commission of the alleged criminal act because he was found unable to stand trial. Under the majority opinion, even though years later when he is sane enough to stand trial he would, if found not guilty because of insanity at the time of the commission of the act, be sent back to the hospital for the criminal insane without a hearing.
A person pleading insanity as a defense and being found not guilty on that ground should be detained for an automatic hearing upon his present mental condition. He should not be committed as an insane person because there is no affirmative finding at the time of his commitment that he is insane. This is glaringly true under the M‘Naghten test of insanity because to be acquitted under that test the jury need only have a reasonable doubt of sanity. This doubt is far different than an affirmative finding of insanity upon which a man ought to be committed to the insane asylum. When confronted with the same problem of commitment without a hearing under the sex deviate law, this court held that due process required a hearing before a commitment. Huebner v. State (1967), 33 Wis. 2d 505, 147 N. W. 2d 646. I would require a hearing to determine affirmatively whether the defendant is still insane before he is committed.