Court Opinion

ID: 9607368
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:57:59.991647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:40.272086
License: Public Domain

Rosellini, J.
(dissenting in part)—I agree with the majority that the trial court did not err in refusing to grant a stay of criminal proceedings because of the alleged mental condition of the defendant; but I disagree with the majority in so far as they hold that because the motion to revoke the defendant’s parole was introduced in the criminal action rather than in a separate civil proceeding, the court was without authority to consider the motion.
This court having determined that the motion was properly denied, the holding that the motion was improperly before the court is unnecessary. I am fearful that the procedure prescribed by the majority may be accepted as the rule; and I do not believe such a rule is warranted by this case or by the statutes.
RCW 71.02.620 provides:
“Whenever it shall be made to appear to the superior court of any county that any paroled patient found in such county has become unsafe to be at large, said court shall order such patient apprehended and returned to the hospital from which he was paroled . . .”
While a procedure to be followed in an adjudication of insanity is prescribed by RCW 71.02.090-300, no special *589procedural requirement is set forth in RCW 71.02.620, providing for the return of a paroled patient when it is made to appear to the superior court that he is unsafe to be at large. The majority say that the showing must be made before the court sitting as a civil court and in a separate “proceeding.” This simply means that the motion cannot bear the title of a criminal proceeding in which a patient happens to appear before the court, but must bear a different “civil” title, and that if it is not properly entitled, the court may not consider it. This appears to me to place too much emphasis on form. I do not see the efficacy of it and I do not find the requirement in the statute. The purpose of the statutory provision is to authorize any superior court, before which a proper showing is made, to see that a dangerous incompetent is returned to the hospital to which he has previously been committed in a statutory proceeding which protected his rights. It seems to me that RCW 71.02.620 is broad enough to allow any superior court in which the patient appears for any reason, upon a proper showing, to order him returned, regardless of the circumstances under which the patient comes before the court. The majority do not say that any right of the patient would be violated if the court had this power, or that any reason of public policy forbids it; but they simply construe the provision as requiring a separately entitled proceeding. In my opinion they have read the requirement into the statute for no useful purpose.
If the majority are correct, the court might release a dangerous parolee simply because the petition, upon which he was brought before the court, was improperly entitled. The purpose of the statute is to protect society as well as the mentally ill person. The strict construction of this procedural requirement, adopted by the majority, does not expedite this purpose but hinders it, and for this reason I have expressed my disagreement with the majority of the court.
Finley, J., concurs with Rosellini, J.
May 21, 1959. Petition for rehearing denied.