Court Opinion

ID: 9786559
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 23:57:57.328215+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:46.412632
License: Public Domain

Justice MARTINEZ
dissenting:
We granted certiorari in this case to address the following issue:
Whether the court of appeals erred in concluding that the objecting party, and not a criminal defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity, has the burden of proof in a hearing to determine whether a defendant is eligible for temporary release from the state hospital for treatment and rehabilitation activities.
The majority opinion neither resolves the question presented, nor provides any guidance to the parties and courts involved in hearings on temporary removal of a patient from an institution for treatment and rehabilitation. Because I find that the majority's interpretation of the statute is not functional, and because I do not believe the legislature intended such a result, I respectfully dissent. I would find that the burden of going forward and the burden of proof properly fall on the objecting party, not only because such an outcome comports with the statutory structure, but also because it is consistent with our previous decisions regarding the placement of burden. Therefore, because I agree with the court of appeals, I would affirm and remand for further proceedings.
I begin my discussion with a brief outline of the statute around which the dispute in this case is centered: section 16-8-118, 6 C.R.S. (2008), which governs temporary removal of a patient from an institution for treatment and rehabilitation. This section grants authority to the chief officer of the institute in which a patient has been committed to allow temporary removal of the patient for treatment and rehabilitation activities. § 16-8-118(1)(a). The statute requires that the chief officer notify both the committing court and the district attorney that he will authorize temporary removal for treatment and rehabilitation activities unless he receives written objection from either the district attorney or the patient. Id. Thus, ab*117sent objection by either the patient or the district attorney, authorization for removal proceeds at the discretion of the chief officer. Id. Only when the district attorney or the patient objects to the temporary removal does the committing court become involved; at that point the court is required to hold a hearing "upon the objections." § 16-8-118(1)(c). Removal is then conditioned on the eourt's approval following the hearing. Id.
As resolution of this case depends on the proper interpretation of this statute, I reiterate the rules of statutory interpretation that this court has laid out in innumerable cases before. When construing a statute, we seek to interpret it so that we give effect to the legislature's intent. Lagae v. Lackner, 996 P.2d 1281, 1284 (Colo.2000). We presume that the legislature intended a just and reasonable result. Id. Thus, we should consider the legislature's intent and the purpose behind the statute rather than adopting a "lit-eralist interpretation that leads to an absurd result." Id.
Section 16-8-118(1) vests authority in the chief officer of the hospital to allow temporary removal of a patient for treatment and rehabilitation. Originally, the statute gave this power to the committing court upon the written request of the executive director of the department of institutions. Ch. 44, § 39-8-118, 1972 Colo. Sess. Laws 225, 282. However, the General Assembly amended that section in 1973 and transferred to the chief officer of the institution the power to authorize the temporary removal of his patients, absent objection. Ch. 144, see. 1, § 89-8-118, 1978 Colo. Sess. Laws 501.
By granting authority to the chief officer, the General Assembly clearly presumed that the chief officer can appropriately weigh the various factors that go into a decision to allow temporary removal, including the patient's continued progress in his treatment and the risk to public safety. Thus, in all of the cases where the chief officer's decision is not challenged, the legislature has left the decision regarding temporary removal in the sole hands of the chief officer of the institution. § 16-8-118(1). This allocation of authority is also consistent with our previous decisions in which we stated that treatment decisions are best left in the hands of those providing treatment. People v. Gilliland, 769 P.2d 477, 483 (Colo.1989); Kort v. Carlson, 723 P.2d 143, 149 (Colo.1986).
From a practical perspective, when there is an objection, the authority to make this decision must shift because the chief officer of a hospital cannot hold a hearing, weigh evidence, and hear arguments. Thus, the authority to make this decision likely shifts not because the legislature no longer trusted the chief officer to make this decision, but because a court is better suited to hear and consider arguments from opposing sides.
Nonetheless, once an objection is made and a hearing scheduled, the first issue to arise is who must shoulder the burden of going forward. The statute does not explicitly state who has this burden. It states only that the court must hold a hearing "upon the objections." § 16-8-118(1)(c). As the hearing is "wpon the objections," and the objecting party presumably has information revealing why the chief officer's decision to allow temporary removal is flawed, the burden of going forward naturally should fall to the objecting party to present that evidence. Similarly, the objecting party is also better situated to assume the burden of proof.
The majority opinion states that the court has discretion to approve removal decisions and that the imposition of a burden is inconsistent with that discretion. The majority decision is not useful to the parties and courts involved in removal hearings. In every case where an objection is made, the court must hold a hearing. Under the majority opinion, the court will have to determine, in each case, which party will go forward. As a practical matter, the court will likely impose that burden on the objector as the objector possesses evidence which demonstrates why the chief officer's decision was inappropriate. The court cannot impose the burden on the institution, which is not a party to the action. Similarly, it does not make sense to impose the burden on the party supporting the chief officer's recommendation, if in fact one of the parties does support the recommendation, because that party will merely reiterate the reasons behind the chief officer's decision. Only by *118placing the burden on the objector will the court be able to address the issues raised in the objection as required by the statute: the hearing must be held "upon the objections." By refusing to impose a burden, the majority merely dodges the issue raised and arrives at a result that is impractical and may lead to confusion at scheduled hearings.
Furthermore, both the burden of going forward and the burden of proof generally rest on the moving party. "The test for determining which party has the affirmative, and therefore the burden of establishing a case, is found in the result of an inquiry as to which party would be successful if no evi-denee at all were given, the burden being of course on the adverse party." American Ins. Co. v. Naylor, 101 Colo. 34, 39, 70 P.2d 349, 352 (1987). Under this test, the burden in this case clearly must fall upon the objecting party; if that party did not present evidence in support of its objection, the chief officer's decision should prevail because that decision would stand had no objection been made.
I agree with the majority that public safety is an important concern both in cases of removal and release. Nonetheless, I do not agree that the General Assembly intended for the committing court to have complete discretion as to removal decisions merely upon the unsupported objection of a party.
Although the majority cites to other states for support, my review of statutes in other states was not particularly helpful. Dictated by very different statutory mandates, other state courts have made varying decisions about where the burden in a change of confinement hearing should be placed. Although other state cases may appear to lend support for the majority's opinion, upon closer examination, they illustrate only that courts are bound to interpret statutes consistent with legislative intent.
The Nebraska legislature, for example, has vested great authority in its courts to make rather involved decisions about a patient's treatment. See Neb.Rev.Stat. § 29-3702(2) (West 2004). Under the Nebraska scheme, upon a finding of dangerousness, the court orders the defendant to a treatment program. Id. Additionally, the court dictates the conditions of liberty and monitoring. Id. Personnel at the treatment facility must obey the court ordered conditions or face "the full contempt powers of the court." Id. Clearly, the statutory scheme gives the court the power to make decisions regarding the defendant's treatment and confinement.
Consequently, when faced with the question of whether the state was required to present clear and convincing evidence that the defendant remained dangerous in review hearings regarding conditions of confine ment, the Nebraska Court of Appeals held that the court had discretion. State v. Morvis, 2 Neb.App. 887, 518 N.W.2d 664, 668-69 (1994). The court stated that the statute did not specify a burden of proof regarding conditions of confinement but "clearly imposes on the court the burden to determine what freedom of movement outside the locked facility is consistent with the safety of the public." Id. at 669. Thus, the court held that neither the State nor the defendant had the burden of proof to demonstrate whether a change in freedom of movement is warrant, ed. Id. at 671. Rather, decisions regarding conditions of confinement were vested in the discretion of the trial court, consistent with the legislature's grant of authority to the courts. Id. Therefore, although Nebraska adopted the same holding as the majority proffers today, the Nebraska court did so under a dramatically different statutory scheme than Colorado's.
An Ohio case provides another example of a situation where temporary removal decisions were left to the trial court's discretion. See State v. Johnson, 32 Ohio St.3d 109, 512 N.E.2d 652 (1987). Again, however, the statutory scheme that was in place at the time of that decision granted the courts significant authority. At the time of Johnson, the Ohio statute regarding changes in confinement conditions required a hearing in all cases and required the trial court to approve all changes in confinement. Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2945.40 (West 1995). Therefore, the court in Johnson appropriately left discretion in the trial court. The statute was later superceded, however, as the legislature clearly felt that the burden should properly fall on the prosecutor to show, by clear and convine-*119ing evidence, why a patient should not be allowed greater freedoms. See 1996 Ohio Laws 258; Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2945.401 (West 2004); State v. Mahaffey, 140 Ohio App.3d 396, 747 N.E.2d 872, 875 (2000). Thus, although the original statute allowed room for the trial court's discretion, the legislature later decided that the burden should properly fall on the prosecutor.
Our statutory scheme is consistent with our previous pronouncements about the relationship between institutions and the courts. Temporary removal is a treatment mechanism. Just as it is the court's business to resolve disputes, it is for the patient's doctors, who report to the chief officer, to decide the best course of treatment for a patient. See Gilliland, 769 P.2d at 483; Kort, 723 P.2d at 149. Although removal implicates some of the same concerns as release in that a defendant participates in activities outside of the hospital, temporary removal for treatment activities is a far less drastic step than release from the institution altogether.
The majority incorrectly umps the removal and release provisions into one. However, the statutory framework for temporary removal stands in stark contrast to the procedures required for conditional or unconditional release from confinement. § 16-8-115, 6 C.R.S. (2008). In a case of release, the court must always hold a hearing. Id. If any evidence of insanity is introduced, the statute specifically states that the defendant bears the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, restoration of sanity. § 16-8-115(2)(a). The test for restoration of sanity for release is a dangerousness determination which requires that "the defendant has no abnormal mental condition which would be likely to cause him to be dangerous either to himself or to others or to the community in the reasonably foreseeable future." § 16-8-120(1), 6 C.R.S. (2003).1 The court, or a jury when requested, then determines whether the defendant is eligible for release. § 16-8-115(8)(a).
Although issues of public safety exist for the removal program, an exaggerated focus on these concerns disregards the legislative intent to permit treatment outside of the institution even though a patient may still suffer from "an abnormal mental condition" and thus be ineligible for release. The heightened serutiny by the court in cases of release, as compared to removal, makes sense when one considers the purposes behind the two sections. When a patient is being released from an institution, the court must insure that the patient is adequately rehabilitated and able to reintegrate into society. Temporary removal, on the other hand, is authorized when treatment within the confines of the institution is no longer helping the patient. Thus, according to doctors at the treating institution, temporary removal allows treatment outside the institution as a step toward rehabilitation and the ultimate goal of release. In this way, committed patients do not go from institutional confinement to release without any measures to insure that they can reintegrate into the outside world.
Furthermore, an exaggerated focus on public safety ignores the practical realities of both the patient's present confinement and the temporary removal program. First, granting temporary removal privileges to Riggs would not present as great of a step from the patient's present confinement as the majority implies. The doctors at the hospital testified that Riggs has already had unsupervised on-grounds privileges for more than four of the last six years. Riggs has never attempted to escape even though the grounds are not locked and a major street separates two parts of the campus. Consequently, temporary removal off the hospital grounds does not present a large step from the patient's present situation. Second, the temporary removal program is a controlled and gradual program to reintroduce patients into society. Doctors from the hospital testified that when temporary removal is granted, the program begins with supervised recreational and treatment activities. The patient continues to live and undergo treatment at the institution in which he is committed. Unsu*120pervised temporary removal generally does not occur until the patient has responsibly exercised supervised removal for a period of six months to five years. Furthermore, both supervised and unsupervised removal privileges are subject to suspension or revocation. Thus, the temporary removal program provides the next step for patients like Riggs who have already demonstrated their ability to responsibly handle on-grounds privileges. It allows the hospital to maintain supervision and treatment while still providing the next step for patients to progress in their rehabilitation.
The General Assembly has differentiated between release and removal and has clearly given the institution in which the patient is committed more discretion in removal decisions. Thus, the General Assembly has trusted in the chief officer, and by extension the institution's doctors, to make appropriate decisions in removal cases in which there are no objections to removal. We must respect that trust. The General Assembly has stated that the committing court should hold a hearing only when there is an objection, and upon that objection. Therefore, it appears to me that the General Assembly intended for the objecting party to shoulder the burden to demonstrate why the chief officer's decision was incorrect.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. I would affirm the decision of the court of appeals.
I am authorized to say that Justice BENDER joins in this dissent.

. The statute outlines different tests depending on the date of the offense. This test applies to crimes committed on or after June 2, 1965, but before July 1, 1983. The offense in this case was committed in 1981.