Opinion ID: 2324489
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: criminal and civil commitment

Text: Woven into the fabric of this case is a thread of confusion to which our criminal commitment statute, N.J.S.A. 2A:163-2, has contributed. It has long troubled courts, lawyers and legislators. The question becomes especially critical in light of the prominence attained by equal protection in the mental health field as a result of Jackson and Baxstrom. The problematic issue to which I refer is the distinction between a criminal commitment and a civil commitment. I suggest that for practical purposes a person subject to criminal commitment is one who is subject, at the time of commitment, to the process of the criminal justice system. Under this definition, one in Carter's position would not be a criminal committee, but rather a civil committee. The indictment against him has been dismissed. He has been convicted of no criminal activity. He therefore can be involuntarily detained only under the same procedures, the same standards, and in the same institutions as any other involuntary civilly committed patient; and to the extent that N.J.S.A. 2A:163-2 conflicts with these principles in their application to Carter, it invites a declaration of constitutional infirmity. [3] On the other hand, a person subject to criminal commitment procedures would be one against whom an indictment is still pending as, for example, one found incompetent to stand trial, or one who has been convicted of the crime charged. Note, however, that even persons in the criminally insane category may insist on treatment accorded civil patients in most respects. [4] Because I read equal protection to dictate equal treatment for persons acquitted on grounds of insanity and other involuntary civil committees, not only must the conditional release provision of N.J.S.A. 30:4-107 be available to those in Carter's position but, strictly speaking, it must be applied identically to both groups. The question arises, then, as to the necessity for court control over the conditional release of Carter, when such release is left to the sole discretion of the chief executive officer of the hospital in cases of other civil commitments. Although I have some reservations about the constitutionality of this differential in treatment of the two groups, I am satisfied for the time being to accept it, as did Judge Bazelon in Bolton v. Harris, supra . In that case, while finding that persons acquitted on insanity grounds must be treated in all other respects as civilly committed patients, he concluded that equal protection is not offended by allowing the government or the court the opportunity to insure that standards for release of civilly committed patients are faithfully applied to patients committed after having been found not guilty by reason of insanity. Id. 395 F.2d at 652. See also United States v. Ecker, 156 U.S. App. D.C. 223, 479 F. 2d 1206 (D.C. Cir.1973). Thus the Court may retain some control over the Carter -type patient. III