Court Opinion

ID: 9447589
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:38:20.927812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:06.157908
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result only).
I agree that the test governing unconditional release of appellee is settled by Overholser v. Leach, 1958, 103 U.S. App.D.C. 289, 292, 257 F.2d 667, 670, certiorari denied, 1959, 359 U.S. 1013, 79 S.Ct. 1152, 3 L.Ed.2d 1038.1 That
*199test, as my brethren say and as we recognized in Hough v. United States, 1959, 106 U.S.App.D.C. 192, 271 F.2d 458, 461, is whether appellee is free “from such abnormal mental condition as would make [him] dangerous to himself or the community in the reasonably foreseeable future.” It follows that, if the individual is free from such condition, he may be unconditionally released even though he has not “recovered his sanity.”
This is the construction which the court follows in this case, for it reaches consideration of the test laid down in Leach notwithstanding its earlier determination that the record establishes that appellee is still suffering from a mental disease. I think this construction of the statute is also essential to allay constitutional objections against continued confinement of persons initially committed under § 24-301, who are no longer dangerous. Since that section is invoked only in connection with criminal proceedings, its reach must be limited to the purpose of the criminal law. Clearly, the needs of such purpose do not encompass the confinement of those who are not dangerous. Hence, constitutional considerations would require that continued confinement of such persons rests on the laws governing the civil commitment of the insane since they prescribe greater safeguards than those provided in the more summary proceedings under § 24-301. This follows the view expressed by Judge Fahy in his concurring opinion in Ragsdale v. Overholser, 108 U.S. App.D.C. 308, 281 F.2d 943. In all respects I am in full accord with Judge Fahy’s opinion concerning the considerations governing the operation of § 24-301.
While I also agree with the court that the burden is on the appellee, I do not agree that it is as heavy as the one which my brethren have drawn from Leach, i. e., the burden of showing that the hospital superintendent acted arbitrarily and capriciously. Instead, I follow Judge Fahy’s view that “until the courts have gained greater experience with problems growing out of section 24-301, I would go no further than to say that on the evidence and in the circumstances as a whole the District Court should be able to reach a sound judgment one way or the other on the question of release.” Ragsdale v. Overholser, supra (concurring opinion).
I think the record in the instant case' does not allow a sound judgment that appellee is free “from such mental condition as would make him dangerous to> himself or the community in the reasonably foreseeable future.” I therefore concur in the reversal of the judgment below and the remand with directions to consider the matters relating to conditional release. The test for such release is now settled by our decision in Hough v. United States, supra.. , .
Beyond this, I think we should not go. Certainly there is no basis for this court’s comments on the question whether a person who will probably commit non-violent crimes, though not violent ones, may be unconditionally released. That question is not presented by this record.
The court’s comments are bottomed on the mistaken assumption that (1) Dr. Miller, in testifying to his opinion that appellee was not dangerous, “was not saying [appellee] was then free of his check-writing proclivity but only that he was not apt to commit an act of violence”; and (2) that “the District Court thought” that only patients who' would commit acts of violence were barred from release. I am unable to find,, and the court does not cite, any statement by Dr. Miller which, expressly or impliedly, supports the assertion that his testimony rested on the silent premise that passing bad checks was not dangerous because it was not an act of violence. And, clearly, the District Court did not *200rely on any such distinction, for it found that:
“ * * * petitioner will not, in the reasonable future, be dangerous to himself or to others, that is, write any checks without sufficient funds. (The only testimony adduced as to the possibility of petitioner being dangerous to himself and to others was to the effect that, if released, petitioner might revert to writing a bad check as he had done in the past.) ” [Emphasis supplied.]

. See also Hough v. United States, where this court said that in Leach “we con*199strued the [unconditional release provisions of D.C.Code, § 24-301 (e) (Supp. VIII, I960)] to require ‘freedom from such abnormal mental conditions as would make the individual dangerous to himself or the community in the reasonably foreseeable future.’ ” 1959, 106 U.S.App.D.C. 192, 195, 271 F.2d 458, 461.