Case Title: Ex Parte State Ex Rel. Patterson

Citation: 108 So. 2d 448

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1958-10-09T00:00:00Z

Document:
108 So. 2d 448 (1958)
Ex parte STATE of Alabama, ex rel. John M. PATTERSON, Attorney General.
4 Div. 874.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
October 9, 1958.
Rehearing Denied February 12, 1959.
John Patterson, Atty. Gen., MacDonald Gallion and Edmon L. Rinehart, Asst. Attys. Gen., Jas. H. Caldwell, Circuit Solicitor, Phenix City, and Henry Weihofen, Albuquerque, N. M., of counsel, for petitioner.
Roderick Beddow and G. Ernest Jones, Birmingham, for respondent.
COLEMAN, Justice.
The State, by the Attorney General, has filed in this court a petition praying for alternative writ of mandamus or rule nisi, ordering the Honorable J. Russell McElroy, as Special Judge of the Circuit Court of Russell County, "to commit * * * Silas Coma Garrett, III, to the Bryce Hospital * * * to be examined and observed by * * * Dr. J. S. Tarwater, as Superintendent * * * and two members of the medical staff of Bryce Hospital * * * with a view to determining the mental condition of the said Silas Coma Garrett, III, and the existence of any mental disease or defects which would affect his present criminal responsibility or his criminal responsibility at the time of the commission of the crime with which he is charged; or to appear * * * and show cause why he should not do so."
We issued the rule nisi to show cause, and Judge McElroy, hereinafter referred to as the respondent, duly filed motion to quash, demurrer, and answer.
Silas Coma Garrett, III, hereinafter referred to as the defendant, was indicted by the Grand Jury of Russell County for murder in the first degree. The indictment was returned in open court on December 9, 1954. The answer of respondent admits *449 that "* * * the said Garrett was arrested on, but not before October 10, 1955, on said writ of arrest issued on said indictment."
Appended to the order made by the respondent wherein he declined to commit the defendant to the State Hospital as requested by the State, there appears an able and comprehensive opinion by the respondent wherein he states certain material facts as follows:
We do not understand that there is any material dispute as to the accuracy of the foregoing statement of the case.
Respondent states his decision as follows:
"XIII. The Gist Of The Decision Now Being Made.
"XIV. Matters Not Decided.
"I decide nothing other than is stated above."
The statute here involved is § 425 of Title 15, Code 1940, which originated as Act No. 157, Acts of 1933, Extra Session, page 144, and in the part here pertinent recites as follows:
That act came before this court in 1936 in Oliver v. State, 232 Ala. 5, 166 So. 615, a case which concerned a defendant indicted for and convicted of murder in the first degree with the death penalty imposed. In that case, the defendant insisted that the trial court erred in refusing to appoint a lunacy commission to examine him under the Act of 1933. In holding that the trial court did not err in refusing so to do this court said:
The constitutional question referred to concerns the separation of the powers of government required by §§ 42 and 43 of the Constitution of 1901. In Montgomery v. State, 231 Ala. 1, 3, 163 So. 365, 367, 101 A.L.R. 1394, it was said:
In the case at bar, a controversy exists between the state and the defendant wherein the state contends that defendant should be delivered by the sheriff "to the Superintendent of the State hospitals," to remain in his custody "for such length of time as may in the judgment of the commission of lunacy be necessary to determine his mental condition," etc. The defendant says he cannot be confined lawfully in the State Hospitals, or elsewhere, so long as he is entitled to remain at large on bail.
The determination of this dispute requires, as we view it, the exercise of judicial power, as that term is used in the Constitution. We think it is clear that the power to decide whether a defendant is entitled to remain at large on bail is a judicial power. To place that power of decision in the superintendent of the state *452 hospitals and to deny it to the court is contrary to § 43 of Constitution of 1901. If, however, § 425, Title 15, were mandatory on the presiding judge, that would be the effect of the statute.
Since Oliver v. State, supra, this court in four other cases, and the Court of Appeals in one case, have said that § 425 of Title 15, Code 1940, is discretionary and not mandatory. Gast v. State, 232 Ala. 307, 167 So. 554; Burns v. State, 246 Ala. 135, 19 So. 2d 450; Reedy v. State, 246 Ala. 363, 20 So. 2d 528; Hunt v. State, 248 Ala. 217, 27 So. 2d 186; Puckett v. State, 31 Ala.App. 428, 18 So. 2d 834.
In Reedy v. State, supra, in 246 Ala. at page 365, 20 So. 2d 528, in the summary of the attorney general's brief is found the following proposition of law urged by the state in that case:
This court held with the state in the Reedy case, supra, and, for the reasons herein set out we adhere to that decision.
No remedy by appeal at the instance of the state exists to review the order here complained of, and if the state is entitled to any review of that order, it must be by mandamus. Because, however, we are clear to the view that the order complained of is not erroneous and that the writ is not in any event due to issue, we need not determine whether mandamus is the appropriate method of review and, therefore, pretermit consideration of that question.
We have sought to show that § 425, Title 15, is not mandatory, but discretionary with the presiding judge, and we must now consider whether or not the respondent abused his discretion in refusing to commit defendant for the purposes aforesaid.
It appears from the record that the only matter before the respondent when he acted was the written report of the Superintendent of the Alabama State Hospitals. The respondent's opinion states that both the state and the defendant agreed that under § 425, supra, there could not be presented to the judge any evidence of defendant's mental condition other than this written report. Whether or not other such evidence could be presented is not a question in this case and we express no opinion thereon. What we do say is that to require the judge to act on the presentation of the report alone and to foreclose him from exercising any discretion is to take judicial power from the judiciary and place it in the hands of an officer of the executive department of the state government. If we were to say now that the judge abused his discretion because he failed to act when the report of the superintendent was before him, then we would be giving the report a mandatory effect which the Constitution forbids the report to have. Thus it seems to us clear that there has been no abuse of discretion by the respondent in this case.
Inasmuch as the respondent has clearly stated his reasons for refusing to commit the defendant by holding that to do so would be a denial of bail to the defendant contrary to the requirements of § 16 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, we deem it appropriate that we respond to the state's argument that such a holding is incorrect.
Section 16 of Constitution of 1901 provides:
Except for the last clause prohibiting excessive bail, this provision comes to us unchanged from the Constitution of 1819, Art. I, Section 17, Code 1923, Vol. 1, page 63. With reference to this section, this court in 1851 said:
If by a statute the legislature could require that a defendant, otherwise entitled to bail, should be committed to the State Hospitals and there confined while awaiting trial, that defendant would be denied bail as effectually as if he were confined in jail or elsewhere. If § 425, Title 15, requires that a defendant shall be confined on the report of the superintendent, the defendant would be denied bail by that report as effectually as by legislative act. The legislature cannot do indirectly that which it is forbidden to do directly. Sanders v. Cabaniss, 43 Ala. 173, 188; State ex rel. French v. Stone, 224 Ala. 234, 237, 139 So. 328.
In deciding that a person indicted for a felony but enlarged on bail is not "in confinement" as those words are used in what is now § 428 of Title 15, this court said:
In the state's brief, page 15, in the instant case we find the following statement:
Paragraph 2 of the state's petition contains the following recital:
Exhibit B recites that "* * * on joint recommendation of the State of Alabama and the defendant, it is ordered by the court that the defendant be admitted to bail in the amount of $12,500.00."
Under that order, defendant, on posting proper security was not "* * * already subject to being held in confinement * * *." but was entitled to be released from confinement, and, as we understand the proposition from the state's brief quoted above, the act could not apply to him.
In view of our conclusion that to commit defendant as prayed for by the state would deny his constitutional right to bail, we pretermit as being unnecessary any consideration of whether such an application of the statute would be a denial of due process.
Cases from other states have been cited to us as authority for holding that commitment of defendant for examination would not violate any of his constitutional rights. Whatever may be the validity of such argument and those cases, which we do not concede, we are bound by the Constitution of this State and no useful purpose would be served by extending this opinion in distinguishing those cases from our holding here, hence we refrain from doing so.
For the reasons above set forth, the writ prayed for is due to be denied.
Writ denied.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and SIMPSON and GOODWYN, JJ., concur.