Court Opinion

ID: 9845007
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:13:46.507741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:50.218831
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Chief Justice,
dissenting:
While it may be that the appellant was entitled to some form of hearing to determine if her mental condition was such that she should have been rehospitalized, any failure by the state to hold such a hearing has long since ceased to provide a basis for releasing the appellant. I.C. § 66-337 provided the following during the relevant period of this proceeding:
“The director of the department of health and welfare or his designated representative shall as frequently as practical but at least once at the end of the first ninety (90) days examine or cause to be examined every patient, and if it is determined that the conditions justifying involuntary care and treatment no longer exist, discharge the patient .... If the conditions justifying involuntary care still exist a similar review shall be held every one hundred twenty (120) days . ... ”
*170Appellant waited in excess of four years to apply for a writ of habeas corpus. During that period of time, I.C. § 66-337 required that the appellant be examined and determined to be in need of involuntary care and treatment no less than sixteen times. The United States Supreme Court held in O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 95 S.Ct. 2486, 45 L.Ed.2d 396 (1975), that involuntary commitment to a mental institution may not constitutionally continue after the basis for confinement no longer exists. I.C. § 66-337, in recognition of that rule, places the burden on the director of health and welfare to justify detention by regular examination of the patient. The patient must be discharged if it is determined that “the conditions justifying involuntary care and treatment no longer exist.” Consequently, even though the appellant may have been denied appropriate proceedings to determine her mental status at the time of rehospitalization, that deficiency has long since been cured by the mandatory provisions of I.C. § 66-337. Her commitment is not unjustified, but rather has been justified through the safeguard of I.C. § 66-337.
The majority states in its opinion, ante at 900, that the provisions for appeal of an order of rehospitalization under I.C. § 66-340 (and presumably the provisions of I.C. § 66-343 providing for a patient’s personal right to petition for release), do not adequately protect the interests of the patient because review is not mandatory, and because the burden is placed on the patient to justify release. I.C. § 66-337, however, provides for frequent mandatory review and requires that the department justify the continued commitment of the patient. Any insufficiency in the initial determination that the appellant required rehospitalization has therefore long since been cured. The district court’s quashing of the writ of habeas corpus was thus proper, even though premised on a possibly incorrect theory. If the appellant thinks that the I.C. § 66-337 examinations have been flawed, then those complaints should be raised by another habeas corpus proceeding setting forth that argument as grounds for release.
Additionally, I cannot agree with the majority’s unsupported conclusion, ante at 903, that during the rehospitalization hearing the patient must be afforded the right to counsel. Even in parole revocation hearings, the United States Supreme Court has not gone so far as to say that counsel is always required. In a similar context, the court has stated that parole revocation hearings are not criminal proceedings and that the right to counsel in those proceedings must be determined on a case by case basis, with presumptions in favor of counsel in only certain designated cases. Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 93 S.Ct. 1756, 36 L.Ed.2d 656 (1973); see also Wainwright v. Cottle, 414 U.S. 895, 94 S.Ct. 221, 38 L.Ed.2d 138 (1973).
As the majority recognizes, rehospitalization of a mental patient does not demand as stringent procedural proceedings as does parole revocation, ante at 898, 900-902. Indeed, rehospitalization is more removed from the label of “criminal proceedings” than is parole revocation. Since re-hospitalization is a civil proceeding, rather than a criminal one, the right to counsel must be determined with regard to the balancing test recently set forth in the United States Supreme Court decision of Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U.S. 18, 101 S.Ct. 2153, 68 L.Ed.2d 640 (1981). The majority has not even attempted such an analysis. Even under Lassiter, however, the court continued in its recognition of the holding in Gagnon v. Scarpelli, supra, that probationers and parolees have no per se right to appointed counsel at revocation hearings, 101 S.Ct. at 2159; and the Lassiter court even followed that holding by concluding that there was also no per se right to appointed counsel in the particular circumstances presented there. Certainly the same is true of mental patients subject to rehospitalization. I must therefore also dissent from the majority’s conclusion that mental patients are entitled to counsel at rehospitalization hearings.
SHEPARD, J., concurs.