Court Opinion

ID: 9454571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:50:07.467242+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:10.224348
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
This case comes before us as an appeal from an order of a federal district court which denied a writ of habeas corpus to a prisoner in a New York State prison. The petition for the writ challenged the legality of his transfer in 1941 from the Clinton Prison to the Dan-nemora State Hospital (mental cases).
Since I am particularly concerned with the trend towards judicial legislation by the federal courts, I feel that I should set forth my views. And to place this case in a proper factual setting, I must first state what this appeal does not, in my opinion, involve.
We are not reviewing (or at least should not be) the life of Roy Schuster and the matrimonial difficulties which plagued him. Not knowing the facts, I am not qualified, as the majority seem to be, to pass on the merits of the “industrious” Schuster, who after a “tragic peroration” drew from his pocket a revolver with which he killed his troublesome wife and wounded his lawyer, thus at-' tempting to follow Shakespearean precepts. Nor am I prepared to speculate on the merits of his defense that he was in a state of panic and did not know what he was doing. Schuster was indicted for first degree murder. His plea must have made some impression on the jury because he was convicted of second (instead of first) degree murder and was sentenced to imprisonment for a period of from twenty-five years to life. Since there is no record of any appeal, it may well be that Schuster in 1931 preferred life to death.
These events brought Schuster to Sing Sing and then to the Clinton Prison.
*1092The merits of Schuster’s model life in prison and his expectancy for parole in 1948 are interesting history but not relevant to the issue before us.
In 1941 Schuster was transferred to Dannemora, which transfer concededly “accorded with the provisions of § 383 of the New York Correction Law as it then read1 ”, namely, upon the certification of a single prison doctor. Again, I am not in a position (and I have some doubt as to whether the majority is) to know of the doctor’s “qualifications in psychiatry” or to find that his opinion was delivered with “breathtaking simplicity.”
At the hearing in 1967 before Judge Port, Schuster is said to have testified that in 1941 he met with two doctors but with modern-day enlightenment the majority find that Schuster was “not represented by counsel” and was not “afforded an opportunity to cross-examine the doctors.” He certainly received no Miranda warnings, assuming that Miranda was old enough at the time to be warned of anything except not to touch hot stoves. From the record the majority concludes in a quasi-psychiatric-legal way that they are “forced to the unhappy conclusion that Schuster is simply a forgotten man in a mental institution which has nothing to offer him.” On the prescriptive side, they find that since he receives “no treatment, [and] is not occupied in therapy of any kind” that, therefore, “he appears not to be in need of the Danne-mora type of confinement and is able to keep his equilibrium only through his own efforts and his hope that he is preparing himself for the day when he will be released.” But whether he should have treatment or not, or should have Dannemora confinement, is not in my opinion a problem to be solved by a federal court of appeals. New York State has its own laws enacted by enlightened legislators and its own competent judiciary. We are not dealing with the laws and practices of a barbarous nation. Before we dictate to the State and override State procedures, we should exercise a modicum of that “due process" which is so easy to impose on others but so difficult to impose on oneself.
In my opinion, it is not for us to review and question the various State proceedings from 1948 to date. The only problem facing us on this appeal is what are Schuster’s rights, if any, today and how may they be secured ?
A bibliography of the books and newspaper articles concerning the sad plight of those confined in State and Federal mental institutions would be encyclopedic. I accept the nobleness of purpose which prompts such writings and would, with them, wish that a magic wand or pill could cure all the mental ills that so increasingly seem to beset so many. And the majority may know (I do not) of the “indignities, frustrations and dangers, both physical and psychological,” which Schuster is enduring. Nor do I think that this is the time or place to speculate as to “the grisly [a word made popular as a result of Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, at 440, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837] possibility that a prisoner placed in Danne-mora will be marooned and forsaken.” Shades of the Bastille and 1789!
Nor would I find it helpful to decision here to review the cases of various persons committed to Matteawan or the case of the gentleman in Massachusetts whose pro se petition lists in extenso some 35 items which he finds distasteful in his Massachusetts prison. Our problem is not to enact judicial legislation for the State of New York or to write opinions for its Court of Appeals but rather to examine its laws and decisions to ascertain whether they are the product of a benighted State. We must think and act in the light of present conditions.’ The majority apparently relate the present to the past because they say “the substantial disparity between the procedural protections afforded civilians facing involuntary commitment to a mental institution and those given Schuster deprived him of equal protection of the laws, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.” In short, must all prisoners now confined in mental institutions be accord*1093ed retrospectively the prospective rights of mentally ill civilians ? Of course, such a hypothesis would be an impossibility. However, such rights currently bestowed may be a guide to a solution here.
We are not (or certainly should not be dealing with an abstract situation such as future transfer of prisoners who may be mentally ill. Therefore, I take issue directly with the majority’s attempted enactment of a New York law which they phrase as “before a prisoner may be transferred to Dannemora, he is entitled to substantially the same procedures including periodic review of the need for continued commitment in a mental institution as are granted to civilians when they are involuntarily committed to a mental hospital.” Furthermore I regard it as highly presumptuous on our part to “remind those who will conduct the required hearings that the substantive test to be applied is that which New York has laid down for those facing civil commitment.”
Nor is a person suffering from a mental disease entitled to release from a mental institution merely because “treatment” is not recommended or has not as yet been discovered. If “treatment” there be, no one should oppose every effort to cure, and I would willingly join that “growing number of scholars [who] have urged that persons involuntarily committed by the state to mental institutions have a constitutional right to treatment, grounded in either the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment of the Eighth Amendment or in the due process or equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.” How shocked would be the draftsmen of the Constitution if they had known that they were protecting the right to treatment of the mentally ill exclusively for ultimate federal court decision. Rather, in my opinion, they would have said that such questions should be reserved for the States.
The key to the proper solution here is to be found in the majority opinion. They “believe that the New York courts may wish to consider the applicability of [People ex rel. Anonymous No. 1 v. LaBurt, 17 N.Y.2d 738, 270 N.Y.S.2d 206, 217 N.E.2d 31], especially as to prisoners such as Schuster, and due consideration for proper federal-state relations makes it appropriate that we give them an opportunity to do so.” And with their conclusion I agree, namely, “that in this particular case it is appropriate that we decline to consider whether Schuster may be further confined in Dannemora absent adequate treatment until he has presented his claims to a state court.”
When these claims are presented as indicated, I have little doubt but that the State courts, which are showing as much concern for the mentally ill as the majority evince here, in the light of their recent decisions will afford Schuster a full opportunity to present his case on the merits with the privilege of necessary witnesses and counsel retained or appointed.
In People ex rel. Brown v. Johnston, 9 N.Y.2d 482, 215 N.Y.S.2d 44, 174 N.E. 2d 725 (1961), a prisoner validly incarcerated in the Attica State Prison had been transferred for mental reasons to Dannemora State Hospital. He sought to challenge this removal by a writ of habeas corpus. The Court of Appeals held that the writ could be invoked “to obtain a hearing to test the validity of a commitment in an institution for the criminally insane” (p. 485, 215 N.Y.S.2d p. 46, 174 N.E.2d p. 726) and that “a denial of a writ, thereby precluding a hearing to test sanity, would be egregious” (p. 486, 215 N.Y.S.2d p. 46, 174 N.E.2d p. 727).
In People v. Lally, 19 N.Y.2d 27, 33, 277 N.Y.S.2d 654, 659, 224 N.E.2d 87, 91 (1967), the Court said, “The appellant can always (as he has done in the past in habeas corpus) challenge the validity of his continued detention by alleging and showing that he is not in fact insane. Also, he can make an application under subdivision (5) of section 454, as he has done here, and ask for a hearing as to his present condition.”
These decisions, read in connection with People v. Jackson, 20 A.D.2d 170, *1094245 N.Y.S.2d 534 (1963), and People v. Bailey, 21 N.Y.2d 588, 289 N.Y.S.2d 943, 237 N.E.2d 205, (1968), are a fair indication that the courts in New York would give full consideration to Schuster’s application for relief. This conclusion is reinforced by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Baxstrom v. Herold, 383 U.S. 107, 86 S.Ct. 760, 15 L.Ed.2d 620 (1966), wherein the Court said at p. 115, 86 S.Ct. at p. 765, “In order to accord to petitioner the equal protection of the laws, he was and is entitled to a review of the determination as to his sanity in conformity with proceedings granted all others civilly committed under § 74 of the New York Mental Hygiene Law. He is also entitled to a hearing under the procedure granted all others by § 85 of the New York Mental Hygiene Law to determine whether he is so dangerously mentally ill that he must remain in a hospital maintained by the Department of Correction.”
My dissent is based upon the inconsistency of talking about federal-state relations and having Schuster present his claims to a State court and then decreeing that “Schuster be given a hearing on the question of his sanity with substantially all the procedures granted to noncriminals who are involuntarily committed as patients in civil mental hospitals,” and that if “these procedures result in a determination that Schuster is not mentally ill he is to be returned to Clinton State Prison.” About all that is lacking in such a decree is the number of the cell he is to occupy temporarily and a direction to the State Parole Board that they convene and release him at once. I also find a substantial inconsistency between telling Schuster to present his claims to a State court and remanding his case to the district court with instructions to hear and determine petitioner’s application “unless a hearing is held by the courts of the state determining under the standards set forth herein the issues Schuster raises within 60 days from the date of the issuance of the mandate herein, * * In other words, the New York courts are to exercise no independent judgment but merely to accept without question the new federally-created statute for the State of New York which the majority has enacted and then abjectly follow the majority’s views as to the proper operation of the State’s prison system.
My desire to have Schuster’s present condition properly and adequately tested is as great as the majority’s. If he should no longer be in Dannemora (and from the papers before us this would appear to be probable), then he should be transferred to a non-mental prison, and should be given the type of consideration accorded by the Parole Board to all eligible prisoners. But all these procedures should, in my opinion, be under the auspices of the courts of New York until complete disregard of its laws and decisions is shown. Therefore, I would affirm the decision below. When, as and if such recourse to State courts is had, Schuster is, of course, free to seek further relief from the federal courts in the light of the State court’s proceedings and the results thereof.