Title: Ashcroft v. PSRB
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S51508
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: May 5, 2005

FILED:  May 5, 2005
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON

Respondent on Review,
v.
PSYCHIATRIC SECURITY REVIEW BOARD,

Petitioner on Review.

(PSRB 00-1711; CA A118137; SC S51508)
En Banc
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted January 5, 2005.
Katherine H. Waldo, Assistant Attorney General, Salem,
argued the cause and filed the brief for petitioner on review. 
With her on the brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and
Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General.
Harris S. Matarazzo, Portland, argued the cause and filed
the brief for respondent on review. 
BALMER, J.

The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.  The order
of the Psychiatric Security Review Board is vacated, and the case
is remanded to the board for further proceedings. 

The issue in this case is whether, for purposes of ORS
161.295, alcohol dependence is a "mental disease or defect" or,
instead, is a "personality disorder."  The Court of Appeals held
that it was a personality disorder. 
 For reasons that this court
set out at greater length in 
Tharp v. PSRB, 338 Or 413, 338 P3d
413 (2005), we similarly conclude that alcohol dependence is a
personality disorder as that term is used in ORS 161.295(2) and
that, therefore, it is not a mental disease or defect. 
Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.

In January 2002, a trial court found petitioner guilty
except for insanity of attempted assault in the second degree,
based on mental disease or defect.  The trial court placed
petitioner under the jurisdiction of the Psychiatric Security
Review Board (board) for a maximum of five years.  ORS
161.327(1).  In April 2002, the board held a hearing pursuant to
ORS 161.341(7)(a) to determine whether petitioner should be
conditionally discharged or released. (1)  After such a
hearing, the board must discharge the committed person if the
board finds that "the person is no longer affected by a mental
disease or defect, or, if so affected, no longer presents a
substantial danger to others * * * ."  ORS 161.346(1)(a).  

At petitioner's hearing, the state introduced evidence
from petitioner's criminal proceeding, evaluations and tests
conducted while petitioner was committed to the state hospital,
and the testimony of petitioner's treating physician at the state
hospital.  That evidence contained diagnoses by petitioner's
treating physician and others that petitioner was affected by an
"antisocial personality disorder" and "alcohol dependence." 
Neither party identified any evidence in the record that
petitioner suffered from any other mental disease or defect.   At
the hearing, the state argued that petitioner's alcohol
dependence was a mental disease or defect, that petitioner
presented a substantial danger to others, and that petitioner's
commitment to the state hospital and to the board's jurisdiction
should be continued.  Petitioner responded that alcohol
dependence was a "personality disorder" as that term is used in
ORS 161.295(2) and therefore is excluded from the definition of
"mental disease or defect."  Accordingly, petitioner argued that
ORS 161.346(1)(a) required the board to discharge him.  The board
rejected petitioner's arguments and ordered that petitioner's
commitment be continued.

Petitioner appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed. 

Ashcroft v. PSRB, 192 Or App 467, 86 P3d 102 (2004).  That court
concluded that the record contained substantial evidence that
petitioner suffers from alcohol dependence but, as noted, held
that alcohol dependence is a personality disorder and, therefore,
is not a mental disease or defect within the meaning of ORS
161.295(2). (2)  
Id. at 469.  We allowed the board's petition
for review.

In Tharp, this court reviewed in detail the statutes
that authorize a court in a criminal proceeding to find a person
guilty except for insanity because of a "mental disease or
defect," the procedures by which a court may order a person found
guilty except for insanity committed to the jurisdiction of the
board, and the procedures by which a person so committed may be
discharged if the board determines, after a hearing, that the
person is no longer affected by a mental disease of defect.  338
Or at 415-16, 420-22.  
Tharp then considered the meaning of the
term "mental disease or defect" and the legislature's exclusion
from that term of "an abnormality manifested only by repeated
criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct * * * [or] any
abnormality constituting solely a personality disorder." (3) 
ORS 161.295(2).  
Id. at 420-30.  After reviewing the text of the
statute and the legislative history, this court concluded that
"substance dependency" is a "personality disorder" as that term
is used in ORS 161.205(2), and therefore is not a "mental disease
or defect."  
Id. at 430.

This court's decision in 
Tharp, including our analysis
of the relevant statutes and the legislative history,
demonstrates that alcohol dependence, like the drug and substance
dependence that we discussed in 
Tharp, is a "personality
disorder."  
See 
Tharp, 338 Or at 430 ("The legislative history
shows that the legislature intended to exclude personality
disorders such as drug and alcohol dependency from the terms
'mental disease' and 'mental defect' as it used those terms in
ORS 161.295.").  The Court of Appeals correctly so held in this
case, and we therefore affirm that decision.

The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.  The
order of the Psychiatric Security Review Board is vacated, and
the case is remanded to the board for further proceedings.  
1. 
ORS 161.341(7)(a) provides that no person committed to a state hospital following a
finding that the person is guilty except for insanity shall be held for more than 90 days from the
date of the court's commitment order "without an initial hearing before the board to determine
whether the person should be conditionally released or discharged." 
2. 
The Court of Appeals rejected the board's alternative argument that petitioner "should be
judicially estopped from arguing that alcohol dependence is not a mental disease or defect
because he took the converse position in entering the plea of guilty except for insanity in the
criminal proceeding that resulted in his commitment to [the board's] jurisdiction."  
Ashcroft, 192
Or App at 469.  The board did not petition for review of the Court of Appeals decision on that
issue, and we do not discuss it further.
3. 
As this court noted in 
Tharp, the legislature excluded "any abnormality constituting solely
a personality disorder" from the term "mental disease or defect" in 1983, while the exclusion of
repeated criminal or antisocial conduct had been part of the statute since 1971.  
Tharp, 338 Or at
424-25.