Court Opinion

ID: 9754951
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:19:25.161368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:01.149470
License: Public Domain

Conford, P. J. A. D.
(temporarily assigned), concurring. I concur in the Court’s judgment of remand of appellant’s case for further review and in much of its comprehensive opinion concerning review procedures in cases of persons acquitted of crime on grounds of insanity (UGI) and consequently committed. However, I disagree with certain aspects of the opinion.
I am not in accord with the Court’s allocation of the burden of proof where a committee seeks a change in restrictions *313between periodic reviews. The Court’s opinion grants the committee the conditional right to seek alteration of restraints in between regular periodic review hearings but in such ease would reverse the burden of proof from the State, which bears the burden originally as well as on periodic review, to the committee, (pp. 303-304) I believe this position to be wrong in principle. I understand the Court’s basic approach to be that, generally speaking, the State bears the burden of persuasion on depriving an individual of his liberty, in whole or in part, for mental reasons. I agree. However, it can logically make no difference as to burden of persuasion that the committee has chosen to exercise his court-granted right to challenge the restrictions at a time other than on regular periodic review. The State should still bear the ultimate burden because the underlying issue remains the same — whether the individual should be kept under restriction as to his liberty. Nevertheless, a proper distinction can be made as to the burden of coming forward with some evidence to support his claim. That burden can appropriately be placed on the committee when he seeks a change in restrictions between periodic reviews. But if he meets that burden, the ultimate burden of persuasion on the disputed issue of the degree of restriction to be continued on the committee should remain with the State. Cf. State v. Abbott, 36 N. J. 63, 72 (1961) (as to the respective burdens of State and defendant with respect to the defense of self-defense).
I also see no justification for the Court’s setting a two year period after the initial order as a line of demarcation to determine the kind of psychiatric testimony which will be required of the State, (pp. 304-305) Each case stands on its own feet as to the degree of seriousness of the condition of the committee and as to the kinds of proofs which should move a court to determine the nature of the restrictions, if any, which should continue to be imposed on him. The decision has to rest in the sound judgment of the judge; so does, generally, the kind of proof he will properly exact *314from the State to meet its burden as of any particular hearing date.
I would agree, however, that a valid distinction can be made between the first hearing and all later ones as to the kind and nature of proof to be required of the State; At the first hearing I would mandate psychiatric expert proof on the part of the State and I would require in other respects that the rules of evidence be followed as in a criminal trial. At all later hearings, however, the case would be treated as a continuum in any phase of which all prior proofs would be deemed applicable and updated reports of physicians who had testified at earlier stages of the case would be admissible in the discretion of the judge. Subject to the foregoing general directions, I believe it more useful and practicable to vest broad discretion as to proof and procedural requirements in the hearing judge at such later hearings than to direct the manner of his exercise of discretion at every step of the way in an opinion of this Court.
In the foregoing vein, I particularly disagree with the Court’s direction that if the committee gives notice that he intends to offer psychiatric testimony at any subsequent hearing the State must offer rebutting psychiatric testimony (p. 305), I can easily conceive of situations where, in the light of the past history of the case and the medical condition and recent objective behavior of the committee, the judge in his discretion could' properly find the State to have met its burden without putting a physician on the stand.