Court Opinion

ID: 9722700
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:46:02.95852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:07:55.026950
License: Public Domain

POCHÉ, J.
I concur in the conclusion reached by the majority opinion that the state does not deny equal protection of the law to individuals committed to a mental institution upon a finding that they are not guilty by *145reason of insanity (Pen. Code, § 1026)1 when it requires them to pay for their care. For me the question is relatively straightforward.
Ladd contends that she and all section 1026 committees are treated differently from inmates confined in state prisons who are given mental health care in a hospital but are not required to pay for their treatment. The parties concede that the class of section 1026 committees is not a suspect class nor is the requirement they pay for their care a burden upon a fundamental interest. That being so the statute creating the classification is only infirm constitutionally if “the varying treatment of different groups or persons is so unrelated to the achievement of any combination of legitimate purposes that we can only conclude that the legislature’s actions were irrational.” (Vance v. Bradley (1979) 440 U.S. 93, 97 [59 L.Ed.2d 171, 176, 99 S.Ct. 939].)
“It is fundamental to our system of jurisprudence that a person cannot be convicted for acts performed while insane.” (People v. Kelly (1973) 10 Cal.3d 565, 574 [111 Cal.Rptr. 171, 516 P.2d 875].) Accordingly we do not subject to penal sanctions those individuals whose acts were criminal if we find them to have lacked the requisite wrongful intent owing to their insanity. (People v. Skinner (1985) 39 Cal.3d 765, 774 [217 Cal.Rptr. 685, 704 P.2d 752]; § 1026.) Considerations of societal safety and humane treatment underlie the policy of committing individuals found not guilty by reasons of insanity.
In contrast our Legislature has declared that “the purpose of imprisonment for crime is punishment.” (§ 1170, subd. (a)(1).) Thus a prison inmate whose physical or mental condition requires hospital care is held to be serving his sentence during such periods of hospitalization. (§ 2685.) It is entirely reasonable that the state may undertake to shoulder the costs of maintaining and supporting those it punishes with a prison sentence. Both the administrative convenience of prison administration and common decency may compel the hospitalization of inmates suffering severe physical or mental illness. (See § 2684.) Nonetheless such inmate-patients are serving time—they have been found culpable for a crime for which they are being punished. Two mental patients in adjacent beds, one a section 1026 committee and one an inmate-patient, are not similarly situated for the purposes of equal protection analysis.
Although appellant urges us to follow the reasoning of State v. Reed (1984) 192 Conn. 520 [473 A.2d 775], I find the reasoning of that case unpersuasive. Under the Connecticut scheme, like that in this state, individ*146uals civilly committed and those found not guilty by reason of insanity were required to pay for their mental care. However, inmates transferred from a prison to a mental hospital were exempt from paying for their care. As an initial matter the court rejected a comparison advanced by the state between individuals who were civil committees and those committed upon a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity. (473 A.2d at p. 780.) Then it went on to compare the relevant groups: the inmate-patients and the so-called insanity acquittees. It found that the differences between the two groups were “not related to comparative financial ability or need for treatment.” (Ibid.)
As I see it, the Connecticut court focuses upon the wrong interest being served by the classification. The interest at issue is the state’s rationale for making the distinction. That rationale in the case before us is first, the punitive reason for confining inmate-patients and second, the administrative convenience of prison management. Such goals are rationally related to the state’s distinctions regarding payment. That the lines drawn are not perfect is beside the point. (Plyler v. Doe (1982) 457 U.S. 202, 216 [72 L.Ed.2d 786, 798-799, 102 S.Ct. 2382].)
Appellants’ petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied December 20, 1990. Mosk, J., and Broussard, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

 All statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.