Opinion ID: 284813
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Petitions for Habeas Corpus

Text: 19 Since 1948, Schuster has repeatedly challenged his commitment to Dannemora in the New York State courts but in each instance to no avail. His petitions in the state courts for habeas corpus asserting his sanity were dismissed in 1950, 1960 [before the New York courts permitted such a challenge in People ex rel. Brown v. Johnston, 9 N.Y.2d 482, 215 N.Y.S.2d 44, 174 N.E.2d 725, (1961)] and on October 2, 1962. Another petition, dated December 27, 1962 led to a hearing in a state court in March 1963 at which Schuster was represented by assigned counsel. 20 At the 1963 state hearing, only one psychiatrist, a Dr. Carson, testified. He admitted that Schuster was an individual whose conduct in general is correct, who uses impeccable logic and that he shows no obvious signs of mental illness such as deterioration, untidiness, hallucinatory experiences, bizarre ideas or bizarre behavior. Nonetheless, Dr. Carson concluded that Schuster was mentally ill since he had a paranoid condition. This is the type of illness, Carson explained, in which an entire delusional but logical belief is based on a single false premise, and if one allows the truth of the false premise the patient's behavior no longer appears abnormal    Dr. Carson conceded that while he could believe cheating took place in the Regents' examinations in the prison, and that prison officials would be reluctant to have depositions submitted to that effect, he could not believe that anyone would commit a man to a hospital for the criminally insane because of it. Accordingly, he concluded that Schuster must be insane. He was unmoved by Schuster's claim, which the state did not deny, that the prison warden, chief clerk and controller had been dismissed shortly after Schuster made his charges of corruption. We note, further, that the court in the 1963 hearing, refused to consider the legality of Schuster's transfer to Dannemora and concentrated only upon his then sanity. The court thus dismissed the writ, a decision affirmed by the Appellate Division, 3 Dept., 22 App.Div. 2d 762, 253 N.Y.S.2d 534 (1964) and, without opinion by the New York Court of Appeals, 15 N.Y.2d 968, 259 N.Y.S.2d 856, 207 N.E.2d 527 (1965). 21 Undaunted, Schuster initiated a petition for habeas corpus on July 13, 1965, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, alleging that he was sane and that the state procedure by which he was adjudged insane and transferred to Dannemora was unconstitutional. In considering Schuster's request for assignment of counsel after the district court's dismissal of that writ, this court after reviewing the transcript of the 1963 hearing remanded the proceeding to the district court by an order dated February 28, 1967 for an evidentiary hearing on the issue whether the initial transfer to Dannemora was corruptly motivated and directed that counsel be assigned. A hearing on this remand was held on July 12, 1967, during which the court examined not only the issue of corrupt transfer but also such questions as whether petitioner was mentally ill in 1941, and is now, and whether the procedures which had been accorded petitioner were proper. Judge Port again dismissed the writ on December 8, 1967, and this appeal followed. 4