Court Opinion

ID: 9730615
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:17:28.606658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:07.785270
License: Public Domain

White, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent. The right of confrontation of an accused mentally ill person is guaranteed by statute, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 83-1058 (Reissue 1981). The right accorded is “equivalent to the rights of confrontation granted by Amendments VI and XIV of the Constitution of the United States, and Article I, section 11 of the Constitution of Nebraska.”
The determination of whether a convicted person is a mentally disordered sex offender and whether the person is treatable is a “critical stage” of a criminal proceeding. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-2915 (Reissue 1979). That a person may be *867confined in the same institution as a sex offender without having the opportunity to examine the basis (if any) of the analyst’s conclusion, while the mentally ill patient has had that right, does not seem to me to be consistent with due process or equal protection of the law.
Shanahan, J., joins in this dissent.