Evening star., 1962-01-07
BY MIRIAM GUTENBERG
Star Staff Writer

Star Staff Writer
The tortuous trail of the Dis
trict's criminal insanity decisions
has finally led to the Supreme
Court.
For more than seven years, the
high court left undiSturbed both
the Durham rule broadening the
criminal insanity defense and the
law compelling hospital commit
ment for those acquitted via the
Durham rule.
Ironically, although most Of the
controversy has swirled around the
Durham rule, it's the commitment
law that comes under attack in
forthcoming arguments before the
Supreme Court.
The Durham decision of 1854
provided that an accused cannot
be held criminally responsible for
his act if it was the product OF
a mental disease or defect.
The law, passed IA months
later, provided that an accused
found not guilty by reason of in
sanity had to go to a mental hos
pital and stay there until the
hospital superintendent certified
that he had recovered his sanity
and would no longer be danger
to himself and others. Under the
1855 law, the recommended release
had to be approved by the court.
283 Sent to Hospital
From the passage of the law
to June 80 of last year, 283 persons
had been acquitted on insanity
grounds and sent to the hospital.
In the same period, 80 were re-
leased either conditionally or I'M
conditionally.
In the beginning, complaints
about the law were heard only
sporadically because the time in
hospital was usually much less
than the time the accused would
have had to spend in Jail, had he
not been acquitted on insanity
grounds. For instance, Mrs. Kath-
arine A. Haynes, who killed her
husbands mistress, was released
from St. Elizabeths Hospital 43
days after she was found not
guilty on grounds of insanity. She
was the first committed under
the then new law.
Meanwhile. the Court of Ap-
peals was busy interpreting, ex-
planning, expanding and defending
the Durham rule. A complicating
factor was added in 1857 when
st. Elizabeths decided that a
"sociopathic personality" was a
mental disorder. Thus, those pre-
viously classed as sane but anti
social were brought under t he
mental disease classification of
the Durham rule.
More Acquittols Result
This seemed to open the door
wider to acquittals via the insan-
ity route and the parade of 80
ciopathic personalities" grew.
There was rebellion within the
Court of Appeals itself, pointed
comments that no other court
was following the Durham rule
and abortive efforts on Capitol
Hill to replace the Durham rule
with legislation.
Progressively, however, insanity
acquittals began to look less at
tractive to the accused. District
Court judges, supported by the
Court of Appeals, were increas-
ingly disinclined to make a re-
volving door of st. Elizabeths.
The very defendant who was
acquitted as a "sociopathic per-
Sonality," John D. Leach, was in
volved in a landmark appellate
decision on the question of get
ting released from the hospital
after his acquittal. In a unani-
nous opinion, the court of ap-
peals made a distinction between
being sane and being safe.
"The phrase establishing his
eligibility for release, as applied
to the special class of which Leach
is member" wrote Judge George
T. Washington, means something
different from having one or
more psychiatrists say simply
that the individual is sane There
must be freedom from such alb
normal mental condition as would
make the individual dangerous to
himself or the community in the
reasonably foreseeable future"
Court Declines Review
The Supreme Court refused to
review the ruling in the Leach
case in 1859, thereby declining a
bid to look at the law which it
has now agreed to examine.
After the Leach case, the Court
of Appeals took on a series of
cases challenging the commit
ment law as growing number of
the acquitted on insanity grounds
realized it was easier to get into
St. ElizabethS than to get out.
Where the hospital superintend-
ent refused to certify them for
release, they were free to seek re-
lease via habeas corpus proceed
ings. That's where most of the
tests came.
The Court of Appeals standard
emerging from these tests pro-
vides that the one seeking release
must show that he has recovered
his sanity and that the recovery
has reached the point where he
has no abnormal mental condi-
ton which in the reasonably fore
Seeable future would endanger
him or the public if he were re-
leased.
In the same series of decisions