Court Opinion

ID: 9480978
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:04:06.671342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:01.242025
License: Public Domain

D.W. NELSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The majority holds that appellant had no right to a jury trial under the sixth amendment. I agree. I disagree, however, with its rejection of Sahhar’s claim that 18 U.S.C. section 4246 violates his right to equal protection.1 The procedures prescribed for the involuntary commitment of *1209individuals charged with federal crimes are not, in my opinion, substantially related to an important government interest and thus violate Sahhar’s rights under the equal protection component of the due process clause of the fifth amendment.
Equal Protection
1. Level of Scrutiny
Neither the Supreme Court nor the Ninth Circuit has ruled expressly on the level of scrutiny which is appropriate for classifications affecting involuntary commitment. However, in Hickey v. Morris, 722 F.2d 543, 546 (9th Cir.1983), the court noted that Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715, 92 S.Ct. 1845, 32 L.Ed.2d 435 (1972), Humphrey v. Cady, 405 U.S. 504, 92 S.Ct. 1048, 31 L.Ed.2d 394 (1972), and Baxstrom v. Herold, 383 U.S. 107, 86 S.Ct. 760, 15 L.Ed.2d 620 (1966), suggest that the “heightened rational basis test” is appropriate. The Hickey panel declined to decide the issue, however, since in that case “the challenged classifications survive[d] even heightened scrutiny.”2 722 F.2d at 546.
I agree that heightened scrutiny is suggested by Jackson, Baxstrom and Humphrey. Applying the rational basis test to 18 U.S.C. section 4246 would be totally inappropriate, moreover, in light of the threat to individual liberty that it creates. A statute which allows an individual to be committed permanently and involuntarily to the custody of the Attorney General should not be subject to a level of scrutiny which is, as the majority notes, “more or less a judicial rubber stamp.”
The majority does not decide this issue holding that this statute, like the one in Hickey, is constitutional under either a rational basis or a heightened scrutiny standard. Because I do not believe that the statute satisfies the heightened rational basis test, I feel that it is necessary to reach this issue and apply heightened scrutiny.
II. Analytical considerations
The majority notes that Baxstrom and Jackson provide some support for appellant’s position but points out that 18 U.S.C. section 4246 differs from the commitment statute at issue in Jackson by requiring a finding of dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence. In my opinion, however, this additional provision does not remove the statute’s constitutional infirmity. The point is not that commitment is predicated on an independent showing of dangerousness, but that involuntary lifetime commitment is possible under the statute with limited review3 and without the procedural safeguards of a jury trial to which other individuals charged with a federal crime are entitled.
Federal criminal defendants have the right to a jury trial when threatened with six months or more of imprisonment. Codispoti v. Pennsylvania, 418 U.S. 506, 512, 94 S.Ct. 2687, 2691, 41 L.Ed.2d 912 (1974). Within this class of federal criminal defendants is a subclass suspected of being dangerous by virtue of mental disease. Under 18 U.S.C. section 4246, this subclass alone is denied the right to a jury trial even though a judicial determination of dangerousness can result in involuntary, lifetime commitment with no automatic, periodic review in which its members can themselves participate.4
To survive an equal protection challenge under the applicable heightened scrutiny standard, the differential treatment afforded Sahhar and those similarly situated must be substantially related to an important government interest. According to the majority, that interest is twofold: (1) the protection of society from “dangerous criminal defendants,” and (2) the control and treatment of dangerous persons within the federal justice system.
*1210I do not dispute that “Congress has a substantial interest in enacting legislation targeting those accused of federal crimes.” I also appreciate the government’s need to protect its citizens from dangerous criminals. I cannot agree, however, that these interests are substantially related to a statutory classification which denies a jury trial to federal criminal defendants facing involuntary commitment based on the suspicion that they have a mental defect rendering them dangerous. Denying a criminal defendant the right to a jury determination of dangerousness does not make our streets safer; it merely compromises the procedural integrity of the judicial system.5
The instant case is likewise distinguishable from McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528, 91 S.Ct. 1976, 29 L.Ed.2d 647 (1971), on which the majority relies, which held that jury trials are not constitutionally required in juvenile proceedings. McKeiver did not address the issue of equal protection. From the standpoint of equal protection, the government’s interest in withholding a jury trial is much clearer in the case of juveniles. As the Supreme Court noted, requiring jury trials in juvenile proceedings would “put an effective end to what has been the idealistic prospect of an intimate, informal protective proceeding.” McKeiver, 403 U.S. at 545, 91 S.Ct. at 1986. There is no such idealistic prospect at work with respect to individuals such as Sahhar. In the instant case, the government’s interest is not to decriminalize the process for humanitarian reasons, as in McKeiver, but rather, as the majority notes, to protect society from dangerous criminals. Denying jury trials is simply not substantially related to this interest.6
III. Conclusion
Because I believe that 18 U.S.C. section 4246 violates appellant’s right to equal protection of the laws under the fifth amendment, I would reverse the district court and hold the statute unconstitutional. I cannot conclude that the statute’s creation of a class of federal criminal defendants who may be committed for life without the benefit of jury review simply because they are suspected of having a mental disease rendering them dangerous is substantially related to the government’s interest in protecting its citizens from “dangerous criminal defendants.” A statute which compromises an individual’s equal protection right to a jury trial when his liberty may be permanently sacrificed cannot pass constitutional muster on the basis of the government’s concern that he may be a mentally ill, dangerous criminal.

. The majority asserts that it is internally inconsistent to find an equal protection violation but no sixth amendment violation. See Footnote 10, majority opinion. The focus of the two analyses, however, is quite different.
The sixth amendment does not attach here because the commitment proceeding is not criminal in nature. Perhaps the outcome (no right to jury trial in a federal criminal defendant’s commitment proceeding; right to jury trial in ordinary criminal trial of a federal criminal defendant) implies that the sixth amendment distinguishes between two similarly situated groups. However, sixth amendment analysis itself does not make such a distinction, as the majority contends. Under sixth amendment analysis, a jury trial right is simply inapplicable because the proceeding at issue is non-criminal, not because of any comparison between two similarly situated groups of defendants.
In contrast, comparison of the treatment of two similarly situated groups is the touchstone of equal protection analysis. Under the heightened scrutiny standard, the differential treatment afforded defendants like Sahhar will only be deemed constitutional if it is substantially related to an important government interest. Unlike under the sixth amendment, an equal protection claim does not hinge on the particular type of proceeding at issue. Instead, it depends on whether any differential treatment is warranted. Thus, it would not be inconsistent to find a violation of one but not the other, as the majority contends, since the linchpin of each one’s analysis is entirely different.

. The district court had applied the heightened scrunity test, and the panel noted its agreement with that approach. Hickey, 722 F.2d at 546.

. See infra note 4.

. After an individual is committed to the custody of the Attorney General, there is no provision for automatic, periodic review of the commitment decision. A discharge hearing may be requested by the government or the defendant may make a motion to that effect, but the court is under no obligation to hold such a hearing. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 4246(e), 4247(h).

. The situation arguably would be different if the defendant had been found guilty of the crime. See Jones v. United States, 463 U.S. 354, 103 S.Ct. 3043, 77 L.Ed.2d 694 (1983). This, however, is not the case.

. It is important to note additionally that the potential deprivation of liberty faced by individuals such as Sahhar is far greater than that faced by juvenile defendants. Sahhar faces the possibility of involuntary commitment for life. In such circumstances, we should be loathe to deny any procedural due process safeguard.