Court Opinion

ID: 9453015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:59:41.420203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:27.735372
License: Public Domain

BURGER, Circuit Judge,
(concurring) :
I concur in the result reached in the majority opinion and in Judge Danaher’s separate concurring opinion. I am constrained, however, to point out what I believe is an unfortunate shortcoming of the majority opinion.
The Court’s opinion tends to gloss over the important distinction between civil commitment under the Hospitalization of the Mentally 111 Act, D.C.Code § 21-501 et seq. (Supp. V 1966) and criminal commitment pursuant to a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity, D.C.Code § 24-301 (1961). Some, but not all of the rights asserted in the instant cases are indeed articulated in the civil commitment statute. Whether or not they are cognizable in a judicial proceeding or enforceable by judicial procedures is a matter that the majority leaves open to be pursued on the remand, including the question of exhaustion of administrative remedies. But this result is not supported by reliance on the tortured construction placed on the civil commitment statute by the dictum contained in the majority opinion in Rouse v. Cameron, 125 U.S. App.D.C. 366, 373 F.2d 451 (1966), a criminal commitment case. The infirmities and dictum of the majority in the' first Rouse opinion were pointed to by Judge Danaher in his dissent in that case.
True, the majority opinion here does not rely upon and indeed makes only a very limited and qualified reference (“and see”) to the first Rouse opinion; but in light of our treatment of yet another action by Rouse today,1 it seems clear now that the first Rouse opinion is largely dictum. I have grave doubts that we are qualified to oversee mental hospitals in cases of civil commitments but, at the least, there is some statutory basis on which it can be argued that Congress has conferred some power on us at least to inquire into civil commitment cases when it is alleged that one is being detained without any treatment.2 As *524Judge Danaher cogently pointed out in Rouse v. Cameron, supra, Congress made a clear distinction between two different situations, 125 U.S.App.D.C. at 381-383 nn. 12-14, 373 F.2d at 466-468 nn. 12-14 (dissenting opinion). The blurring of these two unrelated types of commitment by the majority opinion here seems to me unfortunate.
TAMM, Circuit Judge, joins in the concurring opinions of Circuit Judge DANAHER and Circuit Judge BURGER.

. Rouse v. Cameron, U.S.App.D.C. (No. 20962, decided today).

. In Tribby v. Cameron, 126 U.S.App.D.C. -, 379 F.2d 104, (No. 20,454, decided April 14, 1967), Judge Edgerton made it clear that this Court was not embarking on a broad scale program to oversee mental institutions but rather confining judicial review narrowly to whether there is a denial of any treatment:
We do not suggest that the court should or can decide what particular treatment this patient requires. The court’s function here resembles ours when we review agency action. We do not decide whether the agency has made the best decision, but only make sure that it has made a permissible and reasonable decision in view of the relevant information and within a broad range of discretion. (Emphasis added).
Supra at -, 379 F.2d at 105. That holding negates any notion of a sweep*524ing judicial surveillance over the choice of therapy. In a psychiatic context, of course, therapy does not necessarily mean medication, “couch” interviews, group or occupational activities; therapy may consist simply of hospitalization to afford a protective environment or milieu therapy. Judicial consideration, therefore, would be largely limited to determining whether the choice of therapy was a conscious medical decision rather than neglect; obviously judges have no competence to evaluate the quality of a given choice of treatment.