Court Opinion

ID: 9443549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:24:40.487306+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:32.206337
License: Public Domain

HUXMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Whether Congress has constitutional power to legislate generally in the field of lunacy and mental incompetency is not an issue in this case and need not be here considered because Congress has not attempted to so legislate. The power of the states to legislate with respect to lunacy and insanity is an exercise of the police power. The asserted right of the federal government to legislate with respect to- mentally incompetent persons is not claimed under any specific grant of power. It rather arises as the necessary implied power in the exercise of duties conferred upon various governmental departments by the constitution and congressional enactments thereunder. As stated by Judge Ridge in Higgins v. McGrath, D.C., 98 F.Supp. 670, 674, “The right of a sovereign to proceed against an insane person charged with the commission of a felony is incidental to- the power to define crimes and prescribe procedure under a criminal code.” It is difficult to see why that power does not exist as well in case of mental incompetency of long duration as in the case of mental incompetency of short duration, when exercised as an incident to the proper discharge of government functions with relation to persons properly within the. jurisdiction of a governmental agency. Common principles of humanity would seem to dictate that when the federal government has taken one into lawful custody, under the exercise of valid power, charged with the responsibility of exhausting its jurisdiction over the subject matter as well as the person thus brought before it who thereafter is found to be insane, it then becomes its duty to adequately care and provide for such a one and that this may be done in an institution set up for that specific purpose. Confining such a one in an institution is in no sense imprisonment or punishment for crime. Restraining an incompetent in a mental hospital deprives him of no constitutional right. He is not entitled to be free for his own sake as well as for the welfare of society.
How the government shall discharge the duty it owes to an insane person lawfully in its jurisdiction is for it to say and not for the individual himself. Congress has legislated with respect to this matter in a number of instances where incompetents have come within its jurisdiction for lawful purposes. By 24 U.S.C.A. § 161, it established St. Elizabeths Hospital in the District of Columbia for the humane care and enlightened curative treatment of the insane of the Army and Navy of the United States and of the District of Columbia. Under different sections of Chapter 24 it has provided for admission to this hospital of insane persons coming under the jurisdiction of the federal government in various capacities. Such persons include personnel of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard, insane inmates of Public Health Service, inmates of the soldiers Home, inmates of the National Home for Disabled Veterans, insane American citizens in the Canal Zone and American citizens adjudged insane in Canada. In the case of insane persons from the Canal Zone and from Canada, the statute provides that the Superintendent of the Hospital shall upon ascertainment of the legal residence of such persons transfer them to the respective states of their residence.1 The sections dealing with the other classifications set out above contain no such provision and apparently thereunder the federal government exercises its jurisdiction over them with right to restrain and confine them in its own institutions throughout the period of insanity, whether long or short.
It seems to me that a consideration of these various statutes warrants the conclusion that Congress was of the view that it had the power and that it was its duty with respect to personnel properly in its jurisdiction to provide for their care and control, in the event of insanity, without respect as to whether such insanity was of long or *562short duration. That is also the conclusion which is reached from a consideration of the cases which have considered this question.
Williams v. Overholser, 78 U.S.App.D.C. 95, 137 F.2d 545, is an interesting case and one which would seem to be clearly in point on the right of the government to retain custody of one perhaps permanently insane. Williams as an insane person was originally committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital in 1921. Prior thereto he had been an inmate of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Togus, Maine. While there.he had shot and killed one of the physicians of the home. The commitment to St. Elizabeths was pursuant to the Act of Congress noted above, providing for commitment to St. Elizabeths’Hospital of an inmate of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers who shall become insane. It would appear from a reading of the facts of the case that he had not been tried for the criminal offense but 'had been committed as an insane person. In 1935 a district judge ruled’ that his- commitment to St. Elizabeths was illegal and ordered him released from custody. Thereafter he was apprehended and as a result of an inquiry by a jury into his alleged insanity was recommitted'. Numerous applications for release by habeas corpus had been denied until the one which was decided by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in the above citation in 1943. The point urged and considered by the trial court was whether under Title 16 § 17 of the Act of 1899, D.C.’Code, which makes it the duty of the commissioner ofthe District to “return to their places of residence * * * all indigent insane persons not residing in the District at the time they became insane” he had a right to demand his release from St. Elizabeths Hospital and to be returned to the State of Maine where 'he claimed his residence. The court did not specifically hold that he had no right to be thus returned but did so hold by inference because quoting from its former case of Howard v. Overholser, 76 U.S.App.D.C. 166, 130 F.2d 429, 432, it said: “If it is assumed that petitioner has or may establish some right of transfer, it is obviously not an absolute one. The statute does not contemplate that a committed insane person shall be transferred in any case to the state of his residence without regard to its willingness to receive him.” The court upheld the right of the federal government to retain custody and control of Williams, notwithstanding that his insanity apparently was permanent. The federal government had so confined ■him for 22 years. The court alluded to the fact that there was no showing that the State of Maine was willing to receive him; that there was no power in the District of Columbia authorities to enforce acceptance by the state, and that under these circumstances petitioner was not entitled to be discharged either into the State of Maine or into the District of Columbia without provision for his care and restraint.
In De Marcos v. Overholser, 74 App.D.C. 42, 122 F.2d 16, an insane American citizen was convicted of manslaughter in Canada. He was thereafter delivered to the United States Government and confined in St. Elizabeths Hospital. His contention in a habeas corpus proceeding that his detention by the United States was unlawful and that he was entitled to release so that he might himself return to Tennessee, the state of his legal residence, or in the alternative be delivered to the state, was rejected. Again the court in its opinion indicated there was doubt as to his right to raise the question by habeas corpus proceeding. The basis of the court’s conclusion upholding the right of the government to retain custody of the petitioner was that where the government properly acquired jurisdiction of an insane person it was in any event under a duty to retain the custody of him and that in the absence of a transfer to the state it must thus keep him until cured of his mental disease.
In White v. Treibly, 57 App.D.C. 238, 19 F.2d 712, 713, a retired army officer became insane and was admitted to St. Elizabeths Hospital. It would fairly appear from the case that his insanity was incurable. By habeas corpus proceeding he challenged the right of the government to *563retain him in custody, contending that he was entitled to be returned to the state of his residence. The trial court agreed and ordered him released. On appeal the Circuit Court reversed, upholding the right of the government to keep him in custody. The court said: “His care and protection, while thus incapacitated and unable to act for himself, are the concern and duty of the government.”
Express constitutional authority is unnecessary to enable the government to provide for the restrainment and adequate protection of mentally incompetent persons properly coming under its jurisdiction. The duty to do so is dictated by the humanitarian principle requiring those-who have jurisdiction of mental incompetents unable to care for themselves to protect and care for them. This duty and responsibility exists as well with respect to those whose mental incapacity may be of long duration as to those whose incapacity is only temporary. It seems to me that an analysis of the various statutes cited and the decisions of the courts support this conclusion.
The manner in which this duty is to be discharged is to be determined by the government and not by the incompetent. It may provide as it has in some of the statutes cited above that such incompetents shall be confined in mental hospitals, maintained by the government; or as in others, that they shall be turned over if possible to the states of their legal domicile. The decisions seem to me to make it clear that the incompetent has no right of choice in determining the place of his confinement. That decision is to be made by the sovereign in whose custody the incompetent finds himself and whose duty it is to provide for him. The decisions above cited also make it clear that an incompetent may not by habeas corpus challenge the government’s custody of him even under those statutes which provide that the retaining authorities shall return him to the custody of the state of his legal residence.
I accordingly conclude that there is no constitutional inhibition against the government preventing it from making adequate, proper and humane provision for the care, custody and treatment of incompetent persons properly brought into court under the government’s criminal jurisdiction, irrespective of whether that incapacity is of short or long duration. How that duty shall be discharged is for the government to say and the incompetent may not complain because the government chooses to provide for him in a proper institution of its own rather than to engage in a tug-of-war with the state to see whether it will take custody or control of him.
The majority concedes congressional power to make provision for the proper care, custody and treatment of persons temporarily insane, finding themselves within the jurisdiction of the federal government, but fail to find constitutional authority to do the same with respect to those whose insanity may be of long duration. Since this right is incidental to the power to define crimes and prescribe procedure under a criminal code to administer criminal jurisdiction of the federal government, no express constitutional power is necessary and no reason appears to me why the power is so limited, as indicated by the majority opinion. In neither event does the federal government attempt to invade this field as parens patriae or undertake to legislate generally with respect to insane persons, their care and custody and the administration of their estates.
It remains only to consider the scope, the effect, and extent of the power exercised by Congress under § 4246. In other words, did Congress intend to confer the powers therein granted only in the case of those temporarily insane, or did it intend that the court should make complete and adequate protection and provision for all insane properly brought into court under its criminal jurisdiction, so long as such insanity existed.
Courts possess the power and it is their duty to interpret and determine legislative intent where there is ambiguity and uncertainty as to meaning. But in so doing we must not over-indulge or unduly speculate with respect to meanings not clearly reflected in the language of the statute, and the language in a statute that is free from *564ambiguity should be given its logical and ordinary meaning. The language of Section 4246 seems to me to be clear and unambiguous. It would seem that when Congress used the term "mentally incompetent” it used it in its ordinary and accepted meaning and that had it intended to distinguish between mental incompetency temporary in nature and that of long duration it would have used appropriate language to indicate such an intent and would have made provision as to what the court should do in case where one brought before it for trial was found to be thus afflicted. That Congress intended the provisions of Section 4246 to apply in any case and to empower the government to retain custody and control of such incompetent until his case was otherwise disposed of becomes more apparent when we consider Section 4248. The two sections must be considered together because Section 4246 provides that when the court finds that the conditions specified in Section 4247 exist the commitment shall be governed by the provisions of Section 4248. Section 4248 provides that the commitment shall run until restoration of mental capacity or until there is such improvement that one’s release will not endanger the safety or property of others or that suitable arrangements have been made for one’s care or custody by the state of his residence. This to me clearly negatives a congressional intent that the commitment under Section 4246 is only in case of temporary mental incapacity and for a short period of time.
This construction is in line with the expressed congressional intent in other statutes, as pointed out, to confer jurisdiction over other classes of insaiie persons properly coming under the jurisdiction of the federal government, irrespective of the nature or extent of the insanity. 'So also the decisions of the courts referred to above to me clearly indicate that the right of the federal government to retain custody of such classes of incompetents is not dependent upon temporary insanity and that the right to continue custody of such persons exists even in cases where the statutes provide that an attempt shall be made to transfer them to the state of their legal residence, so long as incompetency exists.The place of detention is for the government and the incompetent has no choice therein. While I am of the view that appellant may not challenge the government’s custody of him so long as mental incompetency exists, he may in any event not do so until he shows that at least one of the conditions of Section 4248 exist, and this he has wholly failed to do.
I would affirm the judgment appealed from.'

. See 24 U.S.C.A. §§ 196 and 196a.