Opinion ID: 1541042
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Statutory Civil Commitment Scheme

Text: Appellants make two statutory arguments: (1) the 1964 revision of the District of Columbia's civil commitment laws precludes private prosecution, as evidenced by deletion of a reference in the prior statute to a petitioner's use of private counsel, as well as by the overall policies of the 1964 legislation; and (2) the civil commitment scheme is analogous to, and thus should be held to emulate, the criminal and juvenile law systems which preclude prosecution by a private party, absent participation by a public prosecutor. We find neither argument persuasive. In 1964, Congress comprehensively reformed the District's civil commitment scheme by adopting the District of Columbia Hospitalization of the Mentally Ill Act, P.L. No. 88-597, 78 Stat. 944 (1965) (the Ervin Act) now codified in D.C.Code 1973, §§ 21-501 et seq. The Ervin Act omitted the following provision of the prior statute: In any case in which a commitment at public expense, in whole or in part, is sought, the corporation counsel or one of his assistants shall represent petitioner unless said petitioner shall be represented by counsel of his or her own choice. [D.C. Code 1961, § 21-312.] The legislative history of the Ervin Act furnishes no explanation for this deletion. See District of Columbia v. Pryor, supra at 143. Appellants urge that because material amendments to the language of an original act ordinarily must be presumed to change legal rights, see 1A Sutherland, Statutory Construction § 22.30 (Sands 4th Ed. 1972), we must conclude that the authority for private litigation has been repealed. [3] In making our analysis, however, we believe it appropriate to avoid using canons of statutory construction; for every canon, one can find an applicable countercanon. See Llewellyn, Remarks on the Theory of Appellate Decision and the Rules or Canons About How Statutes Are to be Construed, 3 Vand. L.Rev. 395, 401-06 (1950). Our job is to try to make the best sense we can out of statutory revisions that are not entirely clear. It is true that the repealed § 21-312 contemplated that a petitioner . . . would not be required to rely upon the assistance of the Corporation Counsel, but could secure counsel of her own choice. In re Colohan, 93 F.Supp. 641, 642 (D.D.C. 1950). Yet, as we read the statute, the thrust of § 21-312 was not so much the authorization of private participation as it was the provision of government counsel for petitioners who lacked private representation. Accordingly, while deletion of this § 21-312 language repealed statutory authorization for court appointment of government counsel, District of Columbia v. Pryor, supra , we cannot say with equal certainty that the deletion repudiated, in addition, the common practice of permitting private petitioners to litigate involuntary civil commitments with the help of their own counsel. Necessarily, in repealing the § 21-312 obligation of the Corporation Counsel to represent a petitioner, Congress had to repeal the entire sentence, including the unless clause. We cannot read statutory significance into the Congressional failure to rewrite the unless clause into positive law. Given the practice of private civil commitment litigation, we believe that it would be more reasonable to conclude that Congress assumed private parties would continue to litigate civil commitments than it would be to conclude that such litigation would abruptly end if the government attorney opted out. We conclude that the repeal of the contested provision in D.C. Code 1961, § 21-312, adds no force to appellants' argument. [4] We also reject appellants' more pervasive contention that the overall policies of the Ervin Act mandate the absence of private petitioner-litigants. We do recognize that the primary motivation behind the 1964 reform of procedures for voluntary and involuntary hospitalization of the mentally ill was to guarantee the protection of constitutional rights. See S.Rep.No. 925, 88th Cong., 2d Sess. (1964); H.R.Rep.No. 1833, 88th Cong., 2d Sess. (1964); 110 Cong. Rec. 14552, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963) (remarks of Sen. Ervin). In acknowledging this reform goal, however, we cannot overlook the other, sometimes conflicting objectives which the overall commitment scheme attempts to reconcile: protection and treatment of mentally ill individuals, as well as protection of the public. See Dixon v. Jacobs, 138 U.S.App.D.C. 319, 325, 427 F.2d 589, 595 (1970); Covington v. Harris, 136 U.S.App.D.C. 35, 43, 419 F.2d 617, 625 (1969). See generally, Developments in the LawCivil Commitment of the Mentally Ill, 87 Harv.L.Rev. 1189, 1285 n.124, 1288 (1974) (hereafter Civil Commitment ). Absent specific statutory direction, therefore, we have no basis for concluding as a matter of statutory construction that private civil commitment litigation necessarily undermines the Ervin Act reforms balancing all the interests at stake. [5] Finally, appellants' analogy of civil commitment to the criminal and quasi-criminal juvenile law systems does not establish appellants' position. Criminal prosecution, it is true, is generally considered to be a matter of executive branch discretion. See D.C.Code 1973, § 23-101; Newman v. United States, 127 U.S.App.D.C. 263, 382 F.2d 479 (1967). [6] Similarly, government officials are specifically charged with initiating and pursuing all juvenile proceedings. D.C. Code 1973, § 16-2305. The same is not pervasively true, however, in the civil commitment field. Many states, like the District of Columbia, do not expressly mandate participation of a public attorney at the judicial stage of civil commitment proceedings. See Civil Commitment, supra. These states, therefore, arguably permit civil commitment advocacy by private petitioners. [7] Although confinement and other deprivations which result from the civil commitment and criminal-juvenile processes, respectively, provide points of similarity, the fundamentally different natures and goals of the criminal justice and civil commitment systems have led to the adoption of different procedures overall for these systems in the District of Columbia and elsewhere. See Dixon v. Jacobs, supra, 138 U.S.App.D.C. at 325, 427 F.2d at 595. We cannot say, therefore, that the required use of government prosecutors in the criminal-juvenile context should be deemed to indicate a Congressional intent to require such prosecutors for civil commitments, let alone to preclude private litigation in the commitment field. [8] We conclude that appellants cannot establish their case on statutory grounds.