Court Opinion

ID: 9754952
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:19:25.164381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:01.150645
License: Public Domain

Clifford, J.,
dissenting in part. Justice Pashman’s opinion for the Court is a clear, explicit, and much-needed guide to the procedures to be employed with respect to automatic judicial review of continued restraints of UGI committees. It receives my enthusiastic endorsement with but two exceptions. Both points of difference go to the vexing question of burden of proof, an issue which has separated me from my colleagues since first we entered these troubled waters. See *315State v. Carter, 64 N. J. 382, 410, 423-27 (1974) (concurring and dissenting opinion) and State v. Krol, 68 N. J. 236, 267-77 (1975) .(dissenting opinion).
First, I disagree with the following from the opinion of the Court, ante at 299-300:
Just as the State bears the burden of persuasion by a preponderance of the evidence on the necessity for the initial imposition of such restraints, it must similarly reestablish its authority to restrict the liberty of the committee by showing that his present condition warrants their continuance.
[Emphasis added, footnote omitted.]
All the reasons for my favoring a “beyond a reasonable doubt” rule over one calling for only a “bare preponderance of the evidence” were set forth in my Krol dissent, supra. My manifestly inadequate supply of eloquence and the apparently limited persuasiveness of my arguments having proved unavailing there, I simply record here my continuing view that the State should be required to prove beyond any reasonable doubt the necessity to restrict one’s liberty on account of mental illness.
In the same vein I disagree further with so much of the majority opinion as allocates to the committee the burden of proof on the committee’s application, between periodic reviews, for a change in restrictions. In this limited regard I agree with Judge Conford that after the committee has met his burden of going forward with some evidence to support his challenge to the restrictions previously imposed on him, the ultimate burden of persuasion as to the extent to which any restrictions should be continued should rest with the State — and this beyond a reasonable doubt. I adopt the reasoning of that part of Judge Conford’s concurring opinion dealing with this issue.
In doing so I recognize a plain inconsistency with my position in State v. Carter, supra, wherein I advocated imposing on an applicant for conditional release the burden of demonstrating by a bare preponderance (as opposed to the ma*316jority’s then requirement of “clear and convincing” proof) his non-dangerousness, 64 N. J. at 424 — a position later adopted by the Court in State v. Krol, supra, .68 N. J. at 263, n. 13. I now think my position in Carter did not go far enough. Because of the emphasis I would place on a committee’s constitutionally protected liberty interest as set forth in Krol, supra, 68 N. J. at 271-77, I would require the State to bear its burden of demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt the committee’s dangerousness to himself or others or property, at every stage of commitment or review thereof, and would in no instance impose on the committee the burden of proving the converse.
In all other respects I join fully in the opinion of the Court.
Confoed, P. J. A. D., concurring in the result.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice Hughes, Justices Sullivan, Pashman, Scheeibee and Handles and Judge Confoed — 6.
Dissenting in part — Justice Cliffoed — 1.