Court Opinion

ID: 9758527
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:34:26.892161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:52.578425
License: Public Domain

Loiselle, J.
(dissenting). It is crucial to remember that this is not an action for a declaratory judgment, but a habeas corpus proceeding. The plaintiffs alleged that they were confined pursuant to orders of the Middletown Probate Court issued in 1951 and 1964, and that their confinement was illegal because they had received no periodic review of the need for their confinement. The defendant’s return admitted the first allegation and denied the second.
It is incumbent on one seeking a writ of habeas corpus to allege facts which show that he or she is illegally restrained. If the application does not set forth such facts, the court may dismiss it. Mayock v. Superintendent, Norwich State Hospital, 154 Conn. 704, 224 A.2d 544. The defendant may raise this objection by a motion to quash. Practice Book *491§ 453. Such a motion is equivalent to a demurrer. Adamsen v. Adamsen, 151 Conn. 172, 175, 195 A.2d 418. Failure so to move, however, does not cure an insufficient application if no additional allegations are made at the hearing.
In their applications, the plaintiffs did not set forth any facts showing that the orders of the Middletown Probate Court were not still valid. The court found that those orders issued in accordance with § 17-178 of the General Statutes and its predecessor, § 2645 (1949 Rev.). Such commitments were authorized “while such mental illness continues or until . . . discharged in due course of law.” The plaintiffs did not allege that their mental illness did not continue, or that they had been discharged in due course of law. Nor did they so allege at the hearing; the court specifically found that there was no claim that they were not dangerous or that they could survive safely in a free society. Neither did they allege that if they were to be accorded due process today, they would be entitled to be released. At oral argument, counsel made it clear that the absence of such an allegation is not a mere error of pleading. These petitions have been brought not to secure the plaintiffs’ immediate release but to challenge Connecticut’s statutory scheme for releasing them in the event that their mental condition improves at some future date.
The burden of proof of the necessity for the confinement of one who has not been convicted of a crime should remain on the state at all times. The failure of the plaintiffs to allege facts which showed that they were illegally confined, however, meant that they were not entitled to set in motion the machinery of the court. Had they alleged that, given *492proper court review, they would be entitled to be released, the burden of proving the contrary would have been on the defendant.
Because the plaintiffs did not allege any facts which showed that the court orders under which they were committed were no longer valid, or that the lack of periodic court review caused their wrongful confinement, they did not make out a prima facie case of illegal confinement. The court was not in error in dismissing the applications.
In this dissenting opinion House, C. J., concurred.