Court Opinion

ID: 9712201
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:48:46.412334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:10.774578
License: Public Domain

Opinion by
Mb. Justice Musmanno
Concurring and Dissenting in Pabt :
There is no doubt that the appellant, Robert B. Bechtel, is mentally ill and that for his own benefit and for the protection of society he should be confined, but there is no warrant under the law for committing him to an institution for the criminal insane. The appellant is under indictment for murder but he has not yet been tried, and under the Constitution and the law of the land, he is entitled to a trial if and when he should regain sanity. Nor can it be said that he will never recover equilibrium of the mind. The advances made in medicine in recent times lend encouragement to the hope that those upon whom has descended the tragic blindness of insanity will yet see again. Many an affliction which down through the centuries bore the dread label of incurable has fallen under the magic wand of science and no longer frightens mankind. Diseases which have struck terror not only to individuals but to entire communities, vast geographical expanses, and even entire races, are now mere exhibits of curiosity in medical museums.
However, aside from the humanitarian aspect of this observation, the lower Court, in my opinion, overstepped the bounds of the statute under which it acted, *192in consigning the appellant to the horrors of a criminally insane hospital, when there are other hospitals equipped to take care of the prisoner and where, in his climb back to mental health, he would not be burdened with the additionally crushing weight of an adjudication of criminal insanity. Although it is true that the lower Court left unlocked a possible door of release by stating that the prisoner was committed to Farview until “further order of the Court,” it applied at the same time a rather heavy padlock on that door by approving without limitation the report of the Sanity Commission which categorically directed life institutionalization. Appellant’s counsel argues justly in his brief when he says in this connection: “From a practical standpoint, it must be recognized that some day someone in authority will have to make an administra1 tive or judicial determination as to whether the appellant is ‘sufficiently improved’ to be remanded for trial. The appellant has the right to have such determination made upon the facts as may then exist without being prejudiced by the anticipatory disapproval of the commission and of the court below.”
For reasons which are not only humane but therapeutically objective, the law of our State distinguishes between hospitals for the generally mentally ill and a “State hospital for patients convicted of crime, charged with crime, or with criminal tendencies.” Upon a study of the record I do not see why the appellant, instead of being committed to the Norristown State Hospital where the horizon of cure is always in view, has been consigned to Farview where recovery is an ever-receding Fata Morgana on the bleak desert of despair.
I particularly dissent from that part of the Majority’s Opinion which treats of the defendant’s right before the Sanity Commission. The Majority Opinion says that the defendant is not entitled to a jury trial *193under the Mental Health Act of 1931. I have no quarrel with that conclusion. However, the Opinion of the lower Court justifying the decision which this Court affirms goes further than merely stating that a jury trial is not called for. It says that the defendant in these proceedings “has no constitutional right to be confronted by or to cross-examine witnesses.” This in effect means that he may not be represented by counsel because it is counsel that cross-examines witnesses. If the Constitution guarantees the right of counsel to every person accused of crime, with what greater force should that guarantee apply to one who has at stake not only his liberty but what is far more precious than liberty or life itself, namely, the very kingdom of understanding.
No one can deny that untruthful witnesses can and sometimes do appear in all types of proceedings. It is illogical, to say nothing of unjust, to hold that if the result of the proceeding be merely a man’s commitment to prison, the accusing dishonest witnesses may, through the engine of cross-examination, be exposed, but if the commitment is to be to the horrors of an insane asylum, the detained person and his attorney may not, through the x-ray of cross-examination, reveal the falseness of the accusation.
The Majority says that the “inquiries into the mental health or sanity of a prisoner . . . are to inform the conscience of the judge.” I fail to see how the full participation in an inquiry by a member of the bar may impede the functioning of the conscience of the Court. On the contrary, an attorney’s participation would considerably assist in the process of informing the conscience of the Court. More familiar as he would be than the Court with the background, history, traits and general health of the subject, the attorney’s probing, questioning and cross-questioning would be in*194valuable in the ascertainment of truth and in the attainment of justice, the only purpose of any legal proceeding or life itself.