Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0370_0660_ZD.html
Timestamp: 2013-12-07 18:58:41
Document Index: 637397006

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 11721', '§ 5355', '§ 11721', '§ 11721', '§ 11721', '§ 11721']

Apart from prohibiting specific acts such as the purchase, possession and sale of narcotics, California has taken certain legislative steps in regard to the status of being a narcotic addict -- a condition commonly recognized as a threat to the State and to the individual. The [p680] Code deals with this problem in realistic stages. At its incipiency, narcotic addiction is handled under § 11721 of the Health and Safety Code, which is at issue here. It provides that a person found to be addicted to the use of narcotics shall serve a term in the county jail of not less than 90 days nor more than one year, with the minimum 90-day confinement applying in all cases without exception. Provision is made for parole with periodic tests to detect readdiction.
In the instant case, the proceedings against the petitioner were brought under the volitional addict section. There was testimony that he had been using drugs only four months, with three to four relatively mild doses a [p682] week. At arrest and trial, he appeared normal. His testimony was clear and concise, being simply that he had never used drugs. The scabs and pocks on his arms and body were caused, he said, by "overseas shots" administered during army service preparatory to foreign assignment. He was very articulate in his testimony, but the jury did not believe him, apparently because he had told the clinical expert while being examined after arrest that he had been using drugs, as I have stated above. The officer who arrested him also testified to like statements, and to scabs -- some 10 or 15 days old -- showing narcotic injections. There was no evidence in the record of withdrawal symptoms. Obviously he could not have been committed under § 5355 as one who had completely "lost the power of self-control." The jury was instructed that narcotic "addiction" as used in § 11721 meant strongly disposed to a taste or practice or habit of its use, indicated by the use of narcotics often or daily. A general verdict was returned against petitioner, and he was ordered confined for 90 days, to be followed by a two-year parole during which he was required to take periodic Nalline tests.
The majority strikes down the conviction primarily on the grounds that petitioner was denied due process by the imposition of criminal penalties for nothing more than being in a status. This viewpoint is premised upon the theme that § 11721 is a "criminal" provision authorizing a punishment, for the majority admits that "a State might establish a program of compulsory treatment for those addicted to narcotics" which "might require periods of involuntary confinement." I submit that California has done exactly that. The majority's error is in instructing the California Legislature that hospitalization is the only treatment for narcotics addiction -- that anything less is a punishment denying due process. California has found otherwise after a study which I suggest was more extensive than that conducted by the Court. [p683] Even in California's program for hospital commitment of nonvolitional narcotic addicts -- which the majority approves -- it is recognized that some addicts will not respond to or do not need hospital treatment. As to these persons, its provisions are identical to those of § 11721 -- confinement for a period of not less than 90 days. Section 11721 provides this confinement as treatment for the volitional addicts to whom its provisions apply, in addition to parole with frequent tests to detect and prevent further use of drugs. The fact that § 11721 might be labeled "criminal" seems irrelevant, [*] not only to the majority's own "treatment" test, but to the "concept of ordered liberty" to which the States must attain under the Fourteenth Amendment. The test is the overall purpose and effect of a State's act, and I submit that California's program relative to narcotic addicts -- including both the "criminal" and "civil" provisions -- is inherently one of treatment, and lies well within the power of a State.