Court Opinion

ID: 9453014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:59:41.413642+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:27.733762
License: Public Domain

DANAHER, Circuit Judge
[concurring in the result]:
I concur in the result but wish to submit a bit of background as a setting for my observations.

No. 20573

As the hearing opened counsel told the trial judge alternatively that Dobson was no longer mentally ill, or if he is that he is no longer dangerous to himself or others and should be released. In any event, he added, it is not necessary that he be retained in the John Howard Pavilion “which is the maximum security unit of the hospital” and that Dobson should “be permitted to enjoy the greater freedom and liberties which would result from being assigned to one of the less restrictive units of the hospital.”
Thus the court was being asked to decide the legal status of Dobson via habeas corpus. After taking testimony the trial judge found that the petitioner is mentally ill, “suffering from Chronic Brain Syndrome Associated with Brain Trauma, Gross Force, with Psychotic Reaction in remission (Alcoholism) and would be likely to injure himself or others if not hospitalized.” The trial judge concluded that Dobson is mentally ill, would be likely to injure himself or others if allowed to remain at liberty and that he had failed to sustain his burden of proving his eligibility for release.
Dobson in March 1963 filed his first petition for habeas corpus; his next, in June 1963; again in May 1964. Then later in June 1964 he filed a petition for writ of mandamus, and an almost identical petition of like nature in July 1964. August 12, 1965, he filed his fourth petition in habeas corpus, another August 25, 1965, with further petitions of one sort or other, December 15, 1965 and Decem*522her 21, 1965 before filing his sixth habeas petition in January 1966. Next followed a series of pleadings, February 11, 1966, February 25, 1966, another petition for habeas corpus in March 1966, followed by yet other documents in June 1966 and September 1966 while this case was pending. In case after case there were hearings, appointments of counsel, rulings by District Court judges, testimony by psychiatrists and others. The records show that he had broken into the hospital canteen, had stolen money, escaped from the hospital, charged the chief of the guards with forcing him to commit theft and various other derelictions.

No. 20576

Stultz in 1955 had been found guilty of robbery, and while serving his sentence had been committed to St. Elizabeths as a prisoner who had become mentally ill. In 1960 the Commission on Mental Health reported to the court that Stultz was of unsound mind, and accordingly he was committed pursuant to D.C.Code § 21-314. In January 1961, his condition at the hospital was diagnosed as schizophrenic reaction, paranoid type. His counsel informed the trial court that Stultz “doesn’t feel he should have to continue to live with criminals at this time, and he says it hurts him mentally and physically to have to stay in that confinement.” Psychiatric testimony developed that Stultz had complained “that people came and took him away from the hospital in the night and would at times even kill him and then bring him back just before the morning staff, the morning shift, came on the next morning.” On numerous occasions without apparent reason, he had attacked another patient or a nursing assistant. He had even broken the nose of one of the patients.
Stultz filed a writ of habeas corpus in January 1959 which was dismissed after hearing, and leave to appeal having been denied by this court, certiorari was denied in May 1960, 362 U.S. 979, 80 S.Ct. 1065, 4 L.Ed.2d 1014. Thereafter he filed again in August 1960 and in June 1961. There were six separate filings in 1962; eight in 1963; at least ten proceedings in 1964; eight in 1965, five in 1966 and two in 1967. At least eleven different judges in the United States District Court, at one time or other, were engaged in hearing the various petitions submitted by Stultz.
Rouse1 testified that he had been bestirred to seek release after reading a newspaper article concerning Cameron v. Mullen, (No. 20308 decided March 2, 1967). Counsel for Stultz told the trial court that he proceeded because of this court’s opinion in Lake v. Cameron, 124 U.S.App.D.C. 264, 364 F.2d 657 (en banc, 1966). Just what actuated the 40-odd proceedings instituted by Dobson I will not undertake to say.
But I have said enough to justify my promise, swpra, to submit a few comments. Posed as legal questions when properly they should be the subject of disposition by the discipline in which they arise, the various contentions urged upon the courts are limited only by the ingenuity of those who originate them. No doubt, they are encouraged, at least to some degree, by this court’s preoccupation in recent years with problems arising in the field of mental health. But the situation presented on these records only emphasizes the inanity of a 'system which results in the presentation of such questions to the courts.
It may seem reasonable to suppose that sooner or later Congress will be moved to provide for the creation of an entity, some commission of experts,2 whose duty it will be to give appropriate attention to questions, serious or trivial, involving mental patients, particularly those possessed of criminal propensities. I can *523only assume that the interests of such patients as well as of society will best be advanced through reference of all such problems to a competent body, trained for that duty and operating under authority adequate for the purpose. I am completely convinced that matters such as were here considered, en banc, should not be required to engage the time of the courts.3
As matters stand, all that is presently open to us is a remand that possibilities may be explored under D.C.Code § 21-546 (Supp. V, 1966). I will not be surprised if Dobson shall “make such contentions” as he deems fit, or if Stultz shall “take such action” as his counsel may think appropriate. Thereafter, if recent cases supply any criteria, they will be back again asking the court to review what the District Judges shall have done that once more we may say, “That’s not the way to do it." The truth is we do not know how to do it — but I think the staff at St. Elizabeths does know.

. See Rouse v. Cameron, U.S.App.D.C. (No. 20962, 1967); and see Rouse v. Cameron, 125 U.S.App.D.C. 366, 373 F. 2d 451 (1966).

. And surely judges do not so qualify.

. Crime Commissions and public officers concerned with congestion in the courts need only examine the records in these eases to see what is happening to judicial time, not to mention the hours on end spent in court by St. Elizabeths staff who otherwise could be rendering the services their patients require.