Court Opinion

ID: 9885079
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:29:23.112009+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:43.712393
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Schaefer, dissenting: The petitioner in this original habeas corpus action was entitled to be released from the penitentiary when his term of imprisonment expired on June 10, 1966. The proceedings that might, or might not, authorize the continued detention of the petitioner have not been completed. He remained in custody, and the People’s answer to the petition for rehearing stated that the matter was set for trial on June 9, 1967. The inordinate delay was by no means solely attributable to the petitioner. In my opinion his continued incarceration after he has served his sentence is not authorized by any statute and violates his rights under the constitution of Illinois and of the United States. As I read the court’s opinion in People ex rel. Elliott v. Juergens, 407 Ill. 391, the statute providing for the continued detention of criminal sexual psychopaths after their sentences have been served was sustained only upon the ground that the steps contemplated by the statute would be completed prior to the expiration of sentence. In that case the expiration date of the prisoner’s sentence was February 24, 1950. A petition of the Department of Public Safety alleging that he was a sexual psychopath was filed on January 10, 1950, in the county court of Randolph County. The county judge was of the opinion that the statute was unconstitutional, and he had previously so held in several cases. On January 10, 1950, he again held the statute invalid and denied the Department’s petition. On January 23, 1950, the mandamus action which ultimately came before this court was filed on the relation of the Attorney General. Before judgment was entered in that action, however, the prisoner was discharged from the penitentiary when his sentence expired by operation of law on February 24, 1950. Thereafter the Hon. Ralph L. Maxwell, then .circuit judge, denied the petition for mandamus on two grounds: first, that the question presented had become moot; and second, that the acts complained of were within the judicial discretion of the county judge and were not subject to review by mandamus. Upon appeal to this court, the Attorney General contended that the question presented was not moot, because under the statute “the convict cannot be ‘released’ in the legal sense of the term until the law has been complied with. * * * If the Criminal Sexual Psychopath Act is constitutional, then this is simply a case where a prisoner has been discharged without authority of law; for he has not had the medical examination that the act requires as a prerequisite to his restoration to freedom. * * * The fact that the prisoner is physically at large and perhaps may not, as a practical method [sic], ever be apprehended, is of course not material. He is subject to reapprehension and to the examination required by the Criminal Sexual Psychopath Act.” This court affirmed the judgment of the circuit court upon the second ground stated in Judge Maxwell’s order, and did not directly discuss the contention that the case was moot. But the opinion of the court squarely rejected the Attorney General’s contention that the procedures authorized by the statute could take place after the prisoner’s term of imprisonment had ended. “The act further provides that before the expiration of the sentence of any convict who has been confined for certain sex crimes, or for attempts to commit the same, the Department of Public Safety shall apply to the county court of the county where the convict is confined to require an examination to be made of such convict to determine whether he is insane or feeble-minded, or is a criminal sexual psychopath; and if such convict is found to be insane, feeble-minded or a criminal sexual psychopath he shall, upon the expiration of his sentence, be committed to the Department of Public Welfare for confinement in an appropriate State hospital, best suited and equipped to rehabilitate and care for him. * * * The law provides he shall be examined by physicians while he is still in confinement in the penitentiary, and it is after his term of imprisonment has expired that he is delivered to the Department of Public Welfare. He has no ground to complain of the examination during the time he is in prison, and after the term of his imprisonment ends he is entitled to demand a hearing before a jury on the question of whether he is actually a criminal sexual psychopath, as found by the commission. This statute does not, as we interpret it, permit a prisoner, after his discharge, to be seized and detained by the process indicated above, but it must take place before the term has ended, so regardless of all other questions there can be no complaint of the examination of the prisoner, as required by the act.” 407 Ill. at 398. In my opinion, unless the proceedings authorized by the statute are completed “before the term has ended” the prisoner must be discharged. Civil proceedings for his commitment may thereafter be instituted, but I do not understand by what authority the State may constitutionally extend his imprisonment without a determination of his mental condition. Our own decision in People ex rel. Elliott v. Juergens, 407 Ill. 391, indicates the seriousness of the constitutional problem. In Baxstrom v. Herold, 383 U.S. 107, 15 L. Ed. 620, the United States Supreme Court held that equal protection was violated by a New York statutory provision under which a person could be civilly committed at the expiration of a prison sentence without the jury determination available to all other persons civilly committed in New York. And previously the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had held unconstitutional a New York statute which provided that ex-convicts in State mental hospitals could be summarily transferred to an institution for the criminally insane while all other patients in State mental hospitals could be transferred only after a judicial proceeding. (United States v. McNeill, (2d cir.) 294 F.2d 117.) These cases show that the fact that a person has been imprisoned does not allow the State to do away with procedural protections afforded other persons who are alleged to be dangerous to society because of their mental condition. Moreover, I do not believe that the General Assembly intended the construction that the majority has adopted. The statute provides that before any convict who has been confined in the penitentiary for certain enumerated crimes, including rape, is released upon the expiration of his sentence, the Department of Public Safety may file in the circuit court a petition “setting forth facts tending to show that the convict is [1] mentally ill, or [2] in need of mental treatment, or [3] mentally deficient with continuing criminal propensities, or [4] a sexually dangerous person.” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1965, chap. 108, par. 112.) As to the first three of these categories, the statute clearly contemplates that the entire statutory proceeding, including the appointment and report of the commission and the hearing before the jury, must be concluded before the respondent’s term of imprisonment expires. It provides: “If the respondent in any proceedings under this Act is found to be mentally ill, or in need of mental treatment, or mentally retarded with continuing criminal propensities, then he shall upon the expiration of his sentence, be committed to the Department of Mental Health for confinement in the state hospital which it designates.” Ill. Rev. Stat. 1965, chap. 108, par. 112. (Emphasis supplied.) There is no similar explicit requirement in the present statute with respect to a convict who falls within the fourth category and is found to be a sexually dangerous person. The omission appears to have been inadvertent, however, for until the statute was amended to accomplish other purposes in 1957, it provided: “* * * and if such convict is found to be insane or feeble-minded or a sexually dangerous person, he shall upon the expiration of his sentence, be committed * * (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1955, chap. 108, par. 112.) Unless the same requirement that the proceedings be concluded before expiration of sentence is applied to all four categories, further constitutional questions will arise. It is hardly possible to discover a relevant difference between those convicts alleged to be within the first three groups and those alleged to be “sexually dangerous,” especially when none have yet been adjudged to be within any of the categories. It can not be that the sexually dangerous are more likely to commit criminal acts, for those in the third category are “mentally deficient with continuing criminal propensities,” and all have previously committed rape or other sex crimes.