Court Opinion

ID: 8027704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 02:48:53.967989+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:36:52.258338
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE SHEEHY,
dissenting:
I dissent, not so much from the logic of the majority (though the logic is faulty), as from the negligent unconcern of the legislature in failing to make adequate provision for youths like K.M.H.
While I respect the seal of the Youth Court on the facts of this case to protect K.M.H.’s fair trial rights, recitation of the following facts will not damage KM.H.’s case, certainly not as much as the recitation of facts in the majority opinion. The Youth Court found that K.M.H. is seriously mentally ill and as such is a danger to other persons and to himself and that he is in need of intensive psychiatric care for an extended period of time; K.M.H. committed the acts when he was 14, is now 15, and the Youth Court would lose jurisdiction of him at age 21; the Youth Court was not satisfied that intensive psychiatric treatment during the period of six years for which the Youth Court had remaining jurisdiction was sufficient for K.M.H.’s rehabilitation; and then the Youth Court determined from the evidence that reasonable grounds existed that K.M.H. had committed the delinquent (criminal) acts with which he is charged.
In the adult court, K.M.H. as a defendant, if he is found not guilty for the reason that due to a mental disease or defect he could not have a particular state of mind that is an essential element of the offense charged, must be then committed to the custody of the superintendent of the Montana State Hospital to be placed in an appropriate institution for custody, care and treatment. Section 46-14-301(2), MCA. The truth is the people operating the Montana State Hospital do not want high risk placements, and so K.M.H. will shortly be placed in the Montana State Prison or the Swan River Camp under some guise of further treatment. He is not eligible to go to Rivendell in Billings because it does not have security.
The elements of the crime of deliberate homicide in Montana are a voluntary act, (Section 45-2-202, MCA), coupled with either purpose or knowledge (Section 45-5-102, MCA). There is a lapse in logic, therefore, for the Youth Court and the majority of this Court to determine that K.M.H. must be transferred to the adult court for *186criminal prosecution because he is seriously mentally ill, when in the adult court, because he is seriously mentally ill, he may not be convicted of committing a crime. The majority and the Youth Court have been forced to this illogical position because the legislature has failed to make provision for the proper treatment of crazed youths even though the state constitution requires that laws for the punishment of crimes shall be founded on the principles of prevention and reformation. Article II, Section 28, 1972 Mont. Const.
The consequences are terrible for this 15 year old boy. Without overlooking his killing of one person and his assault with a deadly weapon upon another, we may note that historically no civilized governmental entity holds a person responsible for criminal conduct resulting from a lack of substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. American Law Institute, Model Penal Code, Section 4.01(1) (1962). Yet Montana, in 1979, removed that defense from our criminal statutes, and placed it in the power of psychiatrists to opine to the jury whether the defendant had the particular state of mind which is an element of the offense charged. Section 46-14-213, MCA. (See my dissent in State v. Korell (Mont. 1984), [213 Mont. 316,] 690 P.2d 992, 1005, 41 St.Rep. 2141, 2156.) The likelihood is that this 15 year old boy will be sentenced to a long prison term in the adult court, and that facially, treatment for his mental condition will be ordered, but very little received. In the meantime, he will be subjected to the company of male prisoners, half again, twice and three times his age. In the adult court it is even possible for him to receive a death sentence. In light of his immature age, his recognized mental illness, the bleak prospect of adequate treatment for him and his long years of prison life, it is almost not too callous to ask, “Oh death, where is thy sting?”
In this election year, every legislative candidate and gubernatorial candidate should be asked this important question, “What do you intend to provide for the treatment of youths out of control by reasons of mental illness?”