Court Opinion

ID: 9487733
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:24:55.061348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:27.256822
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
I.
As the district court pointed out at the hearing to determine the competency of Baker and his suitability for transfer for mental treatment, this is a test case set up by the Judicial Conference of the United States which makes me quite aware of the significance of the remarks I am about to make.
In my opinion, this case is singularly inappropriate as a test case to determine the validity of the use of television as a means of providing to such a prisoner as Baker the amount of process which he is due. A brief allusion to Baker’s background will show what I mean.
II.
On the date of the hearing, Baker was 36 years old. He had been admitted to the mental-health division at FCI Butner on May 14, 1993, having been originally convicted of bank robbery on January 6, 1986, and received a 15-year sentence. He had been provisionally incarcerated in the méntal-health division at Butner but was released to a community health center in 1990. Apparently he had been released on parole, which was violated , when he assaulted his mother, *849and he was returned to FCI Butner on February 6, 1992. After stabilization on psychiatric medications, he was sent to FCI Jessup, Georgia on October 2, 1992, but due to inappropriate behavior consisting of following the female staff, he was transferred back to FCI Butner where he consented to voluntary hospitalization. While at the mental-health division in Butner, his mental status deteriorated, and he refused medication. A deterioration of his behavior accompanied his refusal to take medication, and on July 22, 1993, the warden of FCI Butner moved for a hearing pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4245.
At the hearing there was testimony from Dr. Rushton A. Backer, a forensic psychologist who testified as to Baker’s mental history, which was to the effect that he had been suffering mental difficulties since at least the mid-seventies for what then appeared to be a schizophrenic disorder. He had been hospitalized ten other times, apparently all due to mental disease, including three admissions to Butner. Dr. Backer concluded that Baker’s principal diagnosis was that of schizophrenia-paranoia type, chronic, and, in addition to other difficulties, he was mildly mentally retarded.
Baker offered no expert testimony on his own behalf, but the court had appointed Dr. Billy W. Royal, a physician, to represent Baker’s interest, who had filed a two-page report dated August 10, 1993.1 Dr. Royal had interviewed Baker and reviewed the clinical files and other records available to him at Butner. He had also talked to the staff at Butner and had conferences with Baker. After reciting that the speech of Baker was at one time a mixture of words and phrases that didn’t connect with each other, Dr. Royal concluded that his diagnostic impression was that Baker was suffering from chronic schizophrenia. That was a provisional finding.
There was no other evidence taken, expert or otherwise, but Baker requested permission to make a statement, which is here quoted in full:
Mr. Baker: “I’m doing time in the school year. I came from New York about ’75. I started — I went to a psychiatrist, got a note. It was some kind of ordeal in Savannah with a car lot dealer. They suggested they wanted me some kind of unnatural because I was too compromising, never got in trouble and they wanted me down there in the trouble wing. So they goes way back. They assign to me to get me in trouble some kind of wing. So they got all so much financing, establishments they had, you know, and I found out the reason why. It was located from up north in Long Island. And when they got to get to the point over me, they kept in cross-examining me and chastising me and making points that I was always wrong, I couldn’t do nothing and I thought why they treat me like this. And seems like every time investment was coming along, it’s like they started going haywire around and going this place and go this place and lot of places and it sounded — they never would tell me nothing. I figure if they wanted to put me on medication so that they can seem more normal than me.”
The statement of Baker, the testimony of Dr. Backer, and the letter from Dr. Royal were all- the evidence in the case. Following that, Baker’s attorney did not argue that Baker was not “suffering from a mental disease or defect for the treatment of which he is in need of custody for care or treatment.” Indeed, the gist of his argument was that Baker’s treatment at Butner had not been closely enough monitored, and, in all events, he told the court:
Something happened between May 14 and June 18 that caused Mr. Baker’s condition to deteriorate to such an extent that eventually the government felt duty bound to come into court and say he’s so far gone now we have to involuntarily commit him. (A.31)
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
He is in need of treatment and hopefully the treatment he is given will be successful as it has been in the past but it is, I think, *850a cause for concern when the involuntary nature of the commitment is a situation which is partially created by factors that are beyond the control of the patient. And I think that’s what happened here so I just asked that the court take that into account in making its determination in this case. Thank you. (A.32-33)
So this was, in all respects, an uncontested hearing. The only issues in such hearings for the district court to decide are whether the prisoner is suffering from a mental disease or defect and whether he needs custody for the care or treatment of any such mental disease or defect. These are, of course, essentially factual findings. In this case, there is no doubt that the record supports the conclusion that Baker is suffering from a mental disease or defect and that he is in need of custody for care or treatment of the same.
III.
But there was no contested fact here for the court to decide. Any risk of mistake in such a case as this is minimal, even if it exists at all, where the government’s expert, the prisoner’s expert, the government’s attorney, and the prisoner’s attorney all agree on the result. I suggest that such a case with an uncontested result is quite inappropriate as a test case to ascertain the validity of the use of television in a proceeding in which the credibility of witnesses and the weight of their testimony must be decided and on which the outcome of the case depends.
IV.
There are only two real issues in this case, and they are: first, is a man to be deprived, possibly indefinitely, of his liberty because of the factual findings of a judge which are not made upon the personal appearance of the witness before the judge; and second, should the man be deprived as a matter of law, as here, of the opportunity to be present before the judge at the hearing and personally address the judge who is the fact finder?
Even if the answers to both of these questions are in the affirmative, a third issue must then be taken into account which is: does administrative convenience (and the procedure at issue can claim no other justification) excuse or justify such harsh treatment?
V.
The issues in this case are profound. They are directly concerned with human liberty, which, of course, other than life, is the most important value the law protects. I think we unnecessarily fall into error by accepting, deciding, and, by publication, putting our stamp of approval on a procedure of the most profound importance in a case which is essentially uncontested. We may only guess as to what the result here would have been had Dr. Backer testified that Baker was insane, had Dr. Royal testified that Baker was not insane, and had Baker made a rational statement in his own behalf rather than the statement appearing on pages 849-50 of this dissent, which, to me, indicates a detachment from reality which was at once apparent to everyone connected with this proceeding. It will take a contested case, I suggest, before we should ascertain whether a man should be deprived of his liberty by a merely televised witness and whether a man should be so deprived of the opportunity to be present and face and address the court.
The Virginia Court, in addressing the delegation of legislative power, has addressed the importance of not approving shortcuts on account of administrative convenience, and we should heed that admonition. In Thompson v. Smith, 155 Va. 367, 154 S.E. 579, 584 (1930), the Court stated:
[I]t is a fundamental principle of our system of government that, the rights of man are to be determined by the law itself, and not by the let or leave of administrative officers or bureaus. This principal ought not to be surrendered for convenience or in effect nullified for the sake of expediency-
The problem presented here is at least as old as the trial of Walter Raleigh, who begged the court in vain to bring Lord Cobham from the Tower. Sending the televised image of a witness from Butner to the City of Raleigh is *851no different than sending Cobham’s writings from the Tower to Winchester.2
VI.
The questions here are far too important to be decided in an uncontested setting, and I think we are making a serious mistake in accepting this as a test case. It should have been decided in a brief unpublished per cu-riam opinion. In my opinion, this is an adulterated proceeding which has gone through the forms of law only, if that.
To repeat, I respectfully dissent.

. This report is not in the record, but there is no reason to believe that the district court's summary of the same is inaccurate,

. Virginia has had more experience with hospitals for the mentally ill than any other State. In 1773, Virginia opened the first American hospital exclusively for the care of the mentally ill at Williamsburg, and in 1828 became the first State to open a second hospital located in the western part of the State at Staunton. Albert Deutsch, The Mentally III in America 66, 112 (2d ed.1949). In Virginia, questions of involuntary confinement for mental illness are heard in open court before a Special Justice face-to-face with the patient and witnesses. Va.Code Ann. §§ 37.1-67.1 to 37.1-67.4, 37.1-88, 37.1-90 (1990). Examination of the docket of hearings before Special Justice Charles L. Harrinton in Marion, Virginia for the month of August, 1993, corresponding to the month of Baker’s television commitment, discloses a total of 82 hearings, all taking place on two afternoons a week between August 2 and August 30 in a conference room located at the State Hospital. As the hearings are held at the hospital, although they may be held in a court room, there is no need to transport patients outside of their controlled environment, and physicians and hospital staff and attendants are readily available to attend the patient as well as provide testimony. The only person inconvenienced at all is the Special Justice who must leave his office and travel to the hospital. If the Commonwealth, with her long history of experience with the care and treatment of the mentally ill, is able to treat these people so fairly, there is no reason the United States cannot do the same.