Opinion ID: 1148775
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: standard for determination of eligibility for release

Text: The defendant asserts that he has been denied due process of law because different legal standards were applied to: (a) find him not guilty by reason of insanity resulting in his commitment, and (b) find him not eligible for release or conditional release. The defendant argues that the test for release should be the same as the test for the finding of insanity which resulted in his commitment. A finding of insanity results in commitment where the defendant, because of mental disease or defect at the time of the alleged crime, is unable to distinguish right from wrong with respect to that act, or is unable to choose the right over the wrong. Section 16-8-101, C.R.S. 1973. [1] The statutory test for release or conditional release, after a commitment which results from a successful insanity plea, requires a finding that the defendant has no abnormal mental condition which would be likely to cause him to be dangerous either to himself or to others or to the community in the reasonably foreseeable future. Section 16-8-120, C.R.S. 1973. [2] The defendant relies on Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715, 92 S.Ct. 1845, 32 L.Ed. 2d 435 (1972). However, Jackson does not require that a state apply the same standard to govern release of one previously found not guilty by reason of insanity as it applied in determining that he was insane at the time of the offense. Jackson involved a mentally defective deaf-mute with the intellectual level of a preschool child who was charged with two robberies involving a total of nine dollars. He was unable to read, write, or otherwise communicate, except through limited sign language. After a hearing, he was found incompetent to stand trial and committed to the Indiana Department of Mental Health until that Department should certify to the court that he was sane. Unlike the instant defendant, Jackson was not found not guilty by reason of insanity. Jackson's counsel, in a new trial motion, contended that there had been no evidence or finding that Jackson was insane, and that his commitment amounted to a life sentence because there was little if any possibility that his mental condition could ever be improved. It was argued that Jackson should have been civilly committed, under a different statute, as a person who was feeble-minded and . . . not insane or epileptic. . . . Ind.Code 16-15-1-3 (1971) (emphasis added). By statute a special institution was provided for civilly committed feeble-minded persons. A patient thus civilly committed could be released whenever, in the Superintendent's judgment, the patient's condition justified release. There was no requirement that such a patient be certified to be sane as a prerequisite to release. Jackson successfully contended in the United States Supreme Court that he had been denied equal protection of the laws by being required to prove he was sane as a prerequisite for release when any other feeble-minded person who had been confined through civil commitment procedures could be freed upon persuading the Superintendent that his mental and physical condition justified release. Moreover, the alternative civil commitment hearing procedure was calculated to better protect against prolonged deprivation of liberty without due process. The holding in Jackson v. Indiana is not applicable here. This defendant was not, like Jackson, found incompetent to stand trial. Both the right and wrong and irresistible impulse tests of legal insanity refer to the defendant's mental condition at the time the alleged crime was committed. [3] Those tests are standards to aid in determining accountability for acts which constitute crimes when done by one who is of sound mind. A leading authority has stated that the issue to be determined at that time is essentially a moral onewhether the defendant was sufficiently aware of the wrongful nature of his act and adequately in control of his impulses to be held accountable for that act. J. Macdonald, Psychiatry and the Criminal 62 (3d ed. 1976). Even though the statutory standard for the defense of insanity concerns itself solely with the defendant's mental state when the allegedly criminal conduct occurred, the defendant argues that he was denied due process by the trial court's refusal to apply that standard to govern his application for release more than four years after the time to which that standard refers. Section 16-8-101, C.R.S.1973. [4] The statutory test for release following commitment after a successful insanity defense, however, concerns itself with the defendant's mental state at the time he seeks release. Section 16-8-120, C.R.S.1973. [5] Its purpose is to determine whether a person who previously claimed he was criminally insane, and therefore not accountable for actions which otherwise would be crimes, should now be set free. The test for release requires a finding, That the defendant has no abnormal mental condition which would be likely to cause him to be dangerous either to himself or to others or to the community in the reasonably foreseeable future. Section 16-8-120, C.R.S.1973. [6] In our view the test is a fair and rational standard. Therefore, we hold that the trial court correctly rejected the defendant's contention that he was denied due process by failure to apply as the standard for release the same test applied to determine whether he was insane several years earlier when the alleged crime was committed.