Court Opinion

ID: 9427208
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:20:01.712158+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:05.464482
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
dissenting.
The question whether a person convicted of a crime has a constitutional right to a hearing before being involuntarily placed in a mental institution is an important one. In this case the three-judge District Court answered that question in the affirmative and entered an injunction protecting appellee against the risk of an arbitrary transfer. As long as he remains in appellants’ custody, he will continue to encounter that risk unless the District Court’s injunction remains in effect. Recognizing this, the District Court explicitly provided that appellants “are enjoined from transferring . . . Larry D. Jones, at any time before his complete discharge from the custody of the State of Nebraska,”1 without following the mandated procedures.
It is undisputed that Jones remains in the custody of the State of Nebraska.2 At the moment, he is on limited parole, and, as a condition of that parole, is receiving in-patient *411psychiatric services in Danville, Ill. I have previously expressed my disagreement with this Court’s conclusion that a parole release moots a controversy between a prisoner and the State over proper parole procedures, see Scott v. Kentucky Parole Board, 429 U. S. 60 (Stevens, J., dissenting), and what was said in Scott applies with even greater force here. For unlike Scott, Jones has not challenged the Nebraska parole procedures, and his limited release on parole does not even arguably moot this live controversy between two adverse litigants. Jones challenged the procedures provided for the transfer of a criminal convict under the State’s custody to a mental hospital. He is still in a mental hospital; he is still under the State’s custody; and if he refuses treatment at this hospital, the State asserts the right to transfer him, involuntarily and without a hearing, to another mental hospital. In short, nothing has happened to destroy or even substantially lessen Jones’ interest in preserving the injunction entered below, and appellants’ interest in vindicating the Nebraska statute is similarly unaffected. I therefore respectfully dissent from the Court’s disposition of this appeal.

 App. to Jurisdictional Statement 2 (emphasis added).

 Jones’ tentative discharge date is not until March 1982. Brief for Appellants on the Question of Mootness 2.