Court Opinion

ID: 9688187
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 17:37:20.3899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:35.787891
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(dissenting). Absent a showing that judicial intervention is necessary to prevent immediate and irreparable harm to the complainant, a sentencing court may not properly issue a directive concerning procedures to be followed by a state agency located in another county, physical custody of the complainant having been lawfully transferred to the state agency by the sentencing court, the state agency not being a party to the proceeding.
*548I
McQuillan contends that his acquittal by reason of insanity effectively removed him from the strictures of the criminal justice system and that as a free man he may only be committed to the Department of Mental Health upon compliance with the procedures applicable in civil commitments. He contends that when, without a hearing, he was "automatically” committed to the Department of Mental Health, following his acquittal by reason of insanity, he was unlawfully deprived of his liberty because r
(1) he could not constitutionally be detained and transferred to the Department of Mental Health without a prior hearing and determination of present insanity;
(2) the statutory procedures for determining his post-commitment sanity and securing his release from custody are constitutionally inadequate.
The Court rejects McQuillan’s principal argument, holding that a person acquitted of a criminal charge on the ground of insanity may be automatically detained for a reasonable period of time — 60 days — without a hearing on the issue of his sanity.1
The Court accepts the essence of McQuillan’s second argument holding that his detention and transfer ("commitment”) to the Department of Mental Health was tainted by the constitutional inadequacy of the statutorily prescribed procedures for determining post-commitment sanity. The Court then promulgates in constitutional terms requirements for. an initial hearing (within 60 days of "temporary detention”) and for subse*549quent hearings to redetermine sanity if the initial one results in "permanent” commitment.
Consideration of this case should have ended once it was decided that the sentencing court properly transferred physical custody of McQuillan to the Department of Mental Health.
II
The jurisdiction of the sentencing court was invoked on the theory that its order "committing” or "temporarily detaining” McQuillan was invalid because of deficiencies in the procedures for determining post-conviction sanity. The jurisdiction of the sentencing court to hear this case is sustained by analogizing the relief sought here to the relief sought when a convicted person files a delayed motion for a new trial.
Had this Court concluded that McQuillan should have been immediately released upon acquittal and, therefore, the order detaining him was altogether void, there might be force to the analogy. But this Court does not hold that McQuillan was entitled to be immediately discharged upon acquittal by reason of insanity. This Court holds, rather, that the original order detaining McQuillan was valid to the extent it provided the authorities an opportunity "to examine and determine [his] present mental condition”. Approval of a 60-day period of "automatic temporary detention” means that McQuillan’s right to a sanity hearing did not mature until this period was completed and, thus, until long after he had been transferred from Wayne to Ionia authorities.
The Court’s analysis would permit a prisoner incarcerated at Jackson or Marquette to file a motion for "relief from judgment” in whichever of *550Michigan’s 83 counties he was convicted on the theory that the sentencing court was without authority to sentence him to serve a term of imprisonment, and the sentence was therefore invalid, because rules or practices of the correctional authorities deny him constitutional rights.
A sentencing judge confronted with a showing that conditions at a state institution located in another county represent an immediate threat of irreparable harm to a convicted person might be constrained to enter a protective order. Such action would be appropriate only if the court in the other county could not be relied on to act expeditiously.
There is no suggestion that the Ionia Circuit Court could not or would not act expeditiously. McQuillan waited two years before filing his pleading entitled "Delayed Motion to Vacate Commitment Order” in the Wayne Circuit Court. No reason is advanced why McQuillan failed to seek relief in the Ionia Circuit Court.
III
The question whether McQuillan was entitled to a sanity hearing within 60 days after acquittal was moot 22 months before he filed his delayed motion to vacate commitment order. McQuillan cannot avail himself of the procedures spelled out by the majority. I would not address these issues until they are presented in an adversary context by a person aggrieved, at the time he files his pleadings, by the asserted procedural deficiencies.
Whatever constitutional deficiencies there may be in the statutory commitment and release procedures, McQuillan is entitled to no relief until he seeks and is denied a sanity hearing. At no time *551did he seek such a hearing in the Ionia Circuit Court before instituting this proceeding in the Wayne Circuit Court. If the Wayne Circuit Court had simply transferred venue to the Ionia Circuit Court for the purpose of determining the legality of McQuillan’s continued detention, I would join in affirmance.
IV
Besides the Wayne Circuit Court’s lack of authority to decide and McQuillan’s lack of standing to litigate the post-commitment issues decided, the Legislature has obviated all need to address them.
The new Mental Health Code provides persons acquitted by reason of insanity the declaratory relief granted by the majority.2
The Court unnecessarily extends constitutional doctrine to reach the very results embodied in an Act of the Legislature.3 As Mr. Justice Harlan stated in dissent:
*552"The political process now having taken hold again in this very field, I am at a loss to understand why the Court should have deemed it appropriate or, in the circumstances of this case, necessary to proceed with such precipitate and insecure strides.” Jones v Alfred H Mayer Co, 392 US 409; 88 S Ct 2186; 20 L Ed 2d 1189, 1213, 1229 (1968).
We would reverse the trial court and grant appellant’s motion that venue be transferred to the Ionia Circuit Court.
T. G. Kavanagh and J. W. Fitzgerald, JJ., concurred with Levin, J.

 The Court does indeed affirm the trial court’s vacation of the initial order in this case. However, it also affirms the trial court’s simultaneous commitment of McQuillan to "temporary custody”.

 1974 PA 258, approved August 6,1974.

 Even though the civil commitment statute requires a precommitment hearing on the issue of present sanity, the majority hold that "there exists significant relevant differences between those civilly and criminally committed” (similarly, see Bolton v Harris, 130 US App DC 1; 395 F2d 642 [1968]), justifying "automatic temporary detention” without a hearing on present sanity of a person acquitted by reason of insanity. Yet the Court holds that a legislature may not permissibly differentiate between commitment and release procedures for persons whose illness is in no way related to criminal activity and the procedures to be followed for persons whose illness a trier of fact has found causally related with the commission of a crime.
Automatic temporary detention is upheld by the Court only after "a judicious weighing of the public’s right to be protected from possibly mentally ill persons against the individual defendant’s right to be protected against unjustified commitment”. Yet, without even presentation of the competing policy considerations, the Court, on constitutional grounds, insists that all other procedures affecting persons civilly and criminally committed must be "equal”.
Nor is the Court content to limit its insistence on equality to those procedures presently existing. In anticipation of legislative revision of the civil commitment scheme in response to Bell v Wayne County *552General Hospital, 384 F Supp 1085 (ED Mich, 1974), the Court holds that equal protection requires that these as of yet unknown amendments to the civil commitment procedures be necessarily made available to those found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Requiring the Legislature to treat the civilly committed and those committed following acquittal by reason of insanity identically may impede legislative reform of civil commitment procedures.