Case Name: In re BUCK
Court: Michigan Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1944-05-17
Citations: 308 Mich. 634
Docket Number: Calendar No. 42,668
Parties: In re BUCK.
Judges: North, C. J., and StARR, Wiest, Butzel, Sharpe, Boyles, and Reid, JJ., concurred.
Reporter: Michigan Reports
Volume: 308
Pages: 634–635

Head Matter:
In re BUCK.
1. Insane Persons — Inquest—Evidence.
Order of commitment of person to an institution as an insane person based solely on certificates of doctors was a nullity since there was a failure to take proofs and to make a full investigation of the facts.
2. Same — Subsequent Orders.
Where original order of commitment of a person as an insane person was a nullity, any subsequent order based thereon is also a nullity.
Habeas corpus proceeding by George E. Buck with accompanying certiorari to Edward E. Harwood, St. Joseph Probate Judge, to obtain release from Kalamazoo State Hospital.
Submitted April 18, 1944.
(Calendar No. 42,668.)
Petitioner discharged May 17, 1944.
Walter G. Jones and Maurine L. Jones, for petitioner.
Herbert J. Rushton, Attorney General, Edmund E. Shepherd, Solicitor General, and Daniel J. O’Hara, Assistant Attorney General, for defendant.

Opinion:
Bushnell, J.
We issued a writ of habeas corpus to inquire into the cause of petitioner's detention in the Kalamazoo State Hospital. By ancillary writ of certiorari we have the record of the proceedings in the probate court of St. Joseph county which resulted in the commitment. It discloses a situation similar to that shown in Re Miller, 303 Mich. 81, and in Re Clifford, 303 Mich. 84, and decision there is controlling here.
Petitioner was adjudged insane by the probate court on December 9, 1933, upon the certificates of two physicians and without "the taking of proofs and a full investigation of the facts. " (In re Miller, supra.) Buck was first sent to the State Psychopathic Hospital at Ann Arbor and subsequently transferred to the Kalamazoo State Hospital upon the authority of a subsequent order of the probate court, dated February 13, 1934, based upon the certificate of the medical director of the State Psychopathic Hospital, who had him under observation.
The original order of commitment being a nullity, any subsequent order based thereon is also a nullity, In re Miller and In re Clifford, supra.
An order may be entered releasing the petitioner.
North, C. J., and StARR, Wiest, Butzel, Sharpe, Boyles, and Reid, JJ., concurred.