Source: https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cphl/articles/hastings/hastings-1_-3.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 06:18:41+00:00

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Addington was a sympathetic case in which to reject the Gault/Winship protections. The defendant, who was clearly mentally ill, might have been denied treatment if the state was forced to provide full due process protections. By abandoning the absolutist position of Winship and Gault, Addington allowed the Court to recast the distinction between regulatory and punitive restrictions.
The Texas Court of Civil Appeals focused on the parallels between indefinite civil confinement and criminal incarceration. Based on this analysis, the court of civil appeals reversed the trial court, holding that the danger to self and others must be proved "beyond a reasonable doubt."' The state appealed the reversal, maintaining that State v. Turner established that the legal elements necessary to support a mental health commitment need be proven only by a preponderance of the evidence.
The Texas Supreme Court found Turner controlling. The central issue in Turner (and the one that was ultimately determinative in the United States Supreme Court decision in Addington) was whether a civil commitment proceeding is punitive and thus controlled by Winship and Gault. In a brief opinion based on the holding in Turner, the Texas Supreme Court reversed the civil appeals court and reinstated the trial court's finding that Frank Addington should be confined indefinitely in the Austin State Hospital. The Texas Supreme Court held that civil commitments are not punitive, but are undertaken to benefit the patient as well as to protect society. Since the court found civil commitments to be civil proceedings, it found that the elements of the state's case need only be proved by a preponderance of the evidence.
*354 The Texas Supreme Court decision was appealed directly to the United States Supreme Court on the issue of the proper standard of proof for involuntary commitment in a mental institution. Frank Addington requested the Supreme Court to apply the Winship requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt to mental health commitments.
Echoing the majority's risk analysis in Winship, the United States Supreme Court structured its opinion in Addington around selecting a standard of proof based on the risks of an improper judicial determination. The Addington Court described society's interest in the outcome of judicial determinations as a continuum, with civil lawsuits between private parties at one end and criminal cases at the other end. Somewhere in between lie the cases that are civil in nature, but whose outcome involves either a litigant's liberty or an allegation that he committed a crime such as fraud.
In a criminal case, on the other hand, the interests of the defendant are of such magnitude that historically and without any explicit *355 constitutional requirement they have been protected by standards of proof designed to exclude as nearly as possible the likelihood of an erroneous judgement. In the administration of criminal justice, our society imposes almost the entire risk of error upon itself.
Having established that the standard of proof is an important symbol of the value society places on individual liberty, the Court then shifted its analysis to the value of liberty itself. The Court found that the value of liberty for a non-mentally ill person, who is facing potential mistaken confinement, is higher than the potential harm to society of not confining the individual. Because of the possibility of mistakenly confining a non-mentally ill person, the state must use a higher standard of proof than preponderance of the evidence.
 Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann. art. 5547-31 to 5547-57 (Vernon 1958 and Supp. 1978-1979).
 State v. Turner, 556 S.W.2d 563 (Tex. 1977), cert. denied, Turner v. Texas, 435 U.S. 929 (1978), provides information about the Texas commitment process under the Texas Mental Health Code that the courts relied on in reviewing Addington. The state could not move for an indefinite involuntary commitment unless the person failed to respond to treatment during temporary hospitalization. This temporary confinement had to be for at least 60 days, and had to be close in time to the petition for indefinite confinement. The state then had to prove by competent expert testimony that the proposed patient was mentally ill, posed a threat to self or others, and was mentally incompetent. These requirements assured that indefinite commitments would only be used for persons who had established mental illness. 556 S.W.2d at 564.
 Addington, 441 U.S. at 420-21.
 State v. Addington, 557 S.W.2d 511 (Tex. 1977).
 Addington v. State, 546 S.W.2d 105 (Tex. Civ. App. Beaumont 1977).
 556 S.W.2d 563 (Tex. 1977).
 The respondent points out the similarities between juvenile delinquency proceedings and civil commitment proceedings; the stigma which attaches to an adjudication of delinquency compares with the stigma concomitant with the finding that one is mentally ill; indefinite confinement of a juvenile delinquent for rehabilitation compares with indefinite commitment for treatment. These similarities have prompted several courts to conclude that due process requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt in civil commitment cases.
Turner, 556 S.W.2d at 564-65.
Some courts in other jurisdictions make a distinction between the standard of clear and convincing evidence and the usual civil standard of the preponderance of the evidence; however, Texas Courts review evidence by but two standards: factual sufficiency and legal sufficiency. The requirement of clear and convincing evidence is merely another method of requiring that a cause of action be supported by factually sufficient evidence. 556 S.W.2d at 565.
 Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 419-20 (1979).
 397 U.S. at 363-64. This risk analysis was that pronounced by the Court in Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 525-26 (1958).
 Chief Justice Burger delivered the opinion, in which all other members joined, except Justice Powell, who took no part in the consideration or decision in the case.
 "Since society has a minimal concern with the outcome of such private suits, plaintiff's burden of proof is a mere preponderance of the evidence. The litigants thus share the risk of error in roughly equal fashion."' Addington, 441 U.S. at 423.
 In civil cases affecting a liberty interest, the state is usually a party. The Addington Court gave as an example immigration and naturalization cases in which the Court has required "clear, unequivocal and convincing"' evidence before deportation or denaturalization. 441 U.S. at 424 (citing Woodby v. INS, 385 U.S. 276, 285 (1966); Chaunt v. United States, 364 U.S. 350, 353 (1960); Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. 118, 125, 159 (1943)). Immigration and naturalization cases are perhaps misleading in that the underlying factual issues are usually vague. They may provide more procedural due process than the usual civil case, but they provide little substantive due process. The Court proposed that cases involving allegations of fraud or some other quasi-criminal activity by the defendant typify situations where a more rigorous standard of proof applies. While a state is certainly not prevented from requiring more than a preponderance of the evidence in fraud based civil actions, the higher standard is not constitutionally required. Most of the civil litigation under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) has been possible because the Supreme Court has held that RICO violations need not be established by proof of criminal liability (proof beyond a reasonable doubt.) Sedima S.P.R.L. v. Imrex Co., Inc., 473 U.S. 479, 491 (1985).
In addition, the "beyond a reasonable doubt"' standard historically has been reserved for criminal cases. This unique standard of proof, not prescribed or defined in the Constitution, is regarded as a critical part of the "moral force of the criminal law,"' and we should hesitate to apply it too broadly or casually in noncriminal cases (citations omitted).
Candor suggests that, to a degree, efforts to analyze what lay jurors understand concerning the differences among these three tests or the nuances of a judge's instructions on the law may well be largely an academic exercise; there are no directly relevant empirical studies. Indeed, the ultimate truth as to how the standards of proof affect decisionmaking may well be unknowable, given that factfinding is a process shared by countless thousands of individuals throughout the country. We probably can assume no more than that the difference between a preponderance of the evidence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt probably is better understood than either of them in relation to the intermediate standard of clear and convincing evidence.
 The Court also assumed that an erroneous commitment will probably be recognized and corrected. Id. at 428-29.
 For example, The New York Family Law challenged in Schall v. Martin, 467 U.S. 253 (1984), was purportedly intended to protect minors from the criminal consequences of their own acts. The sexually dangerous person in Allen v. Illinois, 478 U.S. 364 (1986), would ostensibly obtain treatment during confinement, see infra notes 292-319 and accompanying text; prostitutes picked up under health-hold orders receive treatment for venereal disease; children who are involuntarily vaccinated benefit from a reduced risk of contracting a communicable disease; and epileptics who are denied licenses to drive unless they are certified to be free of seizures benefit from not being involved in automobile accidents. Conversely, pretrial detainees and successful habeas corpus petitioners do not derive any benefit from detention. See United States v. Salerno, 794 F.2d 64 (2d Cir. 1986); Braunskill v. Hilton, 629 F.Supp. 511 (D.N.J. 1986).
 "The State of Texas confines only for the purpose of providing care designed to treat the individual."' Addington, 441 U.S. at 428, n.4.
 Id. But while mental illness and future dangerousness are certainly subjective determinations, it is not so clear that questions such as the defendant's intent are specific, knowable facts.

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