Court Opinion

ID: 9671222
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:33:05.74563+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:08.821867
License: Public Domain

*476BLOODWORTH, Justice
(concurring specially) :
I concur in the special concurrence of Mr. Justice Lawson. I agree that we need not reach the constitutional issue of “due process” because the trial judge considered that “appellant’s mental condition was such that he should not be discharged,” following Moses v. Tarwater, 257 Ala. 361, 58 So. 2d 757 (1952).
Notwithstanding, I wish to add these additional observations. I would most respectfully disagree with the court’s holding (in Mr. Justice Coleman’s opinion) that the right to file a writ of habeas corpus satisfies fundamental “due process” in the case of one committed to an Alabama mental institution. (Title 15, § 3, Code of Alabama 1940.) On that issue, I agree with that which Mr. Justice Brown wrote in his dissent in Moses v. Tarwater, supra:
“The statutes enacted by the legislature, some of which are hereinabove set out, provide the vehicle through which patients are received as inmates and patients into this state institution for the treatment and confinement of insane persons, state action; which clearly bring this case within the scope of the provisions of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, guaranteeing to the citizens of the state and of the United States the right to due process of law before their liberties are taken, as well as within the provisions of the Constitution of the State of Alabama. In the light of these constitutional provisions and the facts of this case, we are constrained to hold that §§ 208 and 210, Title 45, Code of 1940, are violative of the due process clauses of the State and Federal Constitutions. Clearly these statutes authorize ex parte examination without notice and a right to be heard, followed by forced confinement without the consent of the individual whose liberty is taken from him." [Emphasis supplied]
Is it not ironic, to say the least, that this court holds that a person’s liberty may be taken at an ex parte hearing without notice to him or an opportunity to be present, yet that person’s property may not be taken from him without an inquisition into his sanity at a hearing held for that purpose, representation by counsel, notice to him, an opportunity to be present (in most instances), and with a jury empanelled to try the issue? (See Title 21, §§ 9-14, Code of Alabama 1940).
With respect to “due process” under the inquisition statutes, supra, Mr. Justice Thomas spoke for this court in Fowler v. Fowler, 219 Ala. 457, 122 So. 444 (1929) :
“Before consideration of the specific requirements of our statute, we may observe the requirements of due process and of that right under amendment to the Federal Constitution. Lord Chancellor Erskine, in 1806, declared that a writ of notice must be served on one who is made the subject of a commission of lunacy; that the right to be present at the execution of that commission and to be heard before condemnation was ‘his privilege.’ Ex parte Crammer, 12 Ves.Jr. 444, 455.' This natural right found expression in the due process clauses of the Constitution of the United States (Amendments 5 and 14) and in the several Constitutions of Alabama (Const. 1819, art. 1, § 10; 1861, art. 1, § 10; 1865, art. 1, §§ 7, 14; 1868, art. 1, § 8; 1875, art. 1, §§ 7, 8, 14; 1901, §§ 6, 7, 13). Early decisions of our courts are to the effect that proceedings for inquisition of lunacy and appointment of a guardian of a non compos without notice are coram non judice and void. (Cases cited.) * * *»
If I felt we needed to reach the issue, I would reverse this judgment being convinced that petitioner was denied “due process” of law in being denied a hearing before commitment.
MADDOX, J., concurs in the foregoing special concurrence of BLOODWORTH, J.