In Re Lee

78 Cal. App. 3d 753, 144 Cal. Rptr. 528, 1978 Cal. App. LEXIS 1346

Opinions

Opinion

FRIEDMAN, J.

Footnotes

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In this consolidated decision we act upon two habeas corpus petitions transferred here for decision by the state Supreme Court.

In 1976 both petitioners were charged with crime in San Joaquin County, Lee with aggravated assaults and Froberg with robbery. Both were found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to Atascadero State Hospital, which is located in San Luis Obispo County. On August 1, 1977, both applied for release, alleging restoration to sanity. The San Joaquin County Superior Court ordered petitioners returned to that county, fixed a hearing date and ordered their interim confinement in the county jail. The hearing did not take place as scheduled but was continued. On September 22, 1977, both petitioners were still held in jail. Their habeas corpus petitions challenged the validity of their jail confinement pending the restoration-to-sanity proceedings.

We have been informed that petitioners are no longer in jail and are receiving care through psychiatric facilities. At oral argument we ascertained that the restoration-to-sanity hearings had not yet taken place. The San Joaquin County procedure of jailing these applicants may be duplicated in other counties. The case poses an issue of broad public interest which is likely to recur. Therefore we exercise our inherent discretion to resolve the issue even though recent events would normally make it moot. (See In re William M. (1970) 3 Cal.3d 16, 23-25 [89 Cal.Rptr. 33, 473 P.2d 737] and cases cited.)

Pointing to their acquittal of crime, petitioners invoke constitutional protection against jail confinement, however temporary. We have concluded that San Joaquin County’s practice of jailing these applicants stems from a misinterpretation of state law and cannot stand.

Penal Code sections 1026 and 1026a and Welfare and Institutions Code section 7375 provide the prime regulations on the subject. These statutes are fairly complex; for our purpose a partial description and summary are enough. California law does not mandate institutionalization of a defendant who has been found not guilty by reason of insanity. Penal Code section 1026 calls for release proceedings if the defendant “appears” to have recovered his sanity, institutionalization if he does not. It declares: “If... it shall appear to the court that the defendant has fully recovered his sanity such defendant shall be remanded to the custody of the sheriff until his sanity shall have been finally determined in the manner prescribed by law.”

As judicially interpreted, this clause requires a preliminary judicial finding on the score of recovery; an affirmative finding is followed by proceedings of involuntary civil commitment under the Lanterman- Petris-Short Act (LPS; Welf. & Inst. Code, § 5000 et seq.; People v. Kelly (1973) 10 Cal.3d 565, 577-578, fn. 18 [111 Cal.Rptr. 171, 516 P.2d 875]; In re Slayback (1930) 209 Cal. 480, 484 [288 P. 769].) According to LPS, the subject may be detained for 72 hours in a treatment and evaluation facility approved by the State Department of Health. Under some circumstances he may be detained for an additional 14 days of intensive treatment; may be detained for an additional 90 days only if he has threatened or inflicted physical harm on another. (Welf. & Inst. Code, §§ 5150, 5200, 5250, 5300; see Thorn v. Superior Court (1970) 1 Cal.3d 666, 668-671 [83 Cal.Rptr. 600, 464 P.2d 56].)

Arguably, the direction in section 1026 for remand “to the custody of the sheriff” means that the person be held in jail pending the release proceeding. The statutory incorporation of LPS procedures signifies otherwise. LPS does not permit the subject’s jailing during the evaluation and treatment periods; rather he must be placed in a “facility designated by the county and approved by the State Department of Health as a facility for 72-hour treatment and evaluation.” (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 5150.) The interweaving of LPS with Penal Code section 1026 signifies that after the court’s preliminary finding of recovery the sheriff must take the person to the same kind of facility as a mentally disordered person facing involuntary civil commitment.

At this point we turn to the obverse situation—the defendant acquitted by reason of insanity who does not “appear” to have recovered. Section 1026 permits the defendant’s institutionalization without further hearing.

According to former law, institutionalization took the form of a state hospital commitment. Section 1026 was amended in 1974 and 1975 to supply the court with the additional alternatives of commitment to a local psychiatric facility or to out-patient treatment. (Stats. 1974, ch. 1423; Stats. 1975, ch. 1274; see 6 Pacific L.J. 484-507 (1975); 6 Pacific L.J. 273-281 (1975); 7 Pacific L.J. 405-410 (1976).) No precommitment hearing is constitutionally necessary; Penal Code section 1026a permits the individual to apply for release on the ground of restored sanity after a minimum of 90 days under commitment; the application is made to the committing court which is to hold a hearing. The availability of a postcommitment release hearing after 90 days satisfies due process demands. (In re Franklin (1972) 7 Cal.3d 126, 136-139, 143 [101 Cal.Rptr. 553, 496 P.2d 465].) An applicant who requests it is entitled to a jury trial. (Id., at pp. 148-149.) The test for the determination of release is whether the person has improved to the point where he is no longer a danger to the health and safety of himself and others. (Id., at p. 145.)

Welfare and Institutions Code section 7375, subdivision (b), calls for release after proceedings under Penal Code section 1026a. The proceeding usually entails the applicant’s presence. (Kravitz v. State of California (1970) 8 Cal.App.3d 301, 306 [87 Cal.Rptr. 352]; see also, In re Smith (1976) 57 Cal.App.3d 336 [129 Cal.Rptr. 268].) Prior to the 1974 and 1975 amendments, an application for release could be addressed to the superior court of the county in which the patient was confined, that is, the county in which the state hospital was located. (See Witkin, Cal. Crim. Procedure (1963) § 507.) In that condition of the law the patient could be transported between the hospital and the county seat; alternatively, a court hearing could be held at the hospital. (See In re Jones (1968) 260 Cal.App.2d 906, 913 [68 Cal.Rptr. 32].) The 1974 and 1975 amendments fixed exclusive venue in the committing court. The present problem has its genesis in the failure of the 1974 and 1975 amendments to supply any direction for institutional custody pending the hearing.

No custody arrangement is necessary for an applicant who has been admitted to outpatient status or who is on parole from the institution. (See Welf. & Inst. Code, § 7375.) That person need only walk into the courtroomi under his own power. Nor is alteration in custody necessary for the patient committed to a local psychiatric facility. That sort of patient need only be escorted to the courtroom. Interim custody is necessary only when the applicant is an in-patient in a state hospital or psychiatric facility in another county. The present version of section 1026a exhibits no awareness of that necessity. We must construe the statute to ascertain the Legislature’s unexpressed intent.

The 1974 and 1975 amendments of sections 1026 and 1026a were accompanied by changes in companion statutes shaping the criminal law’s treatment of mentally disordered persons. In general, these amendments exhibit a legislative design to absorb LPS procedures into the Penal Code. If a person committed under Penal Code section 1026 needs in-patient treatment pending a determination of his outpatient status, LPS procedures apply. (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 7375, subd. (f)(5) formerly § 7375, subd. (d)(5).) If a “presently incompetent” defendant is institutionalized before trial and there is no substantial likelihood of his recovery, he must be returned to the criminal court for release or for involuntary commitment under LPS procedures. (Pen. Code, § 1370, subd. (b)(1).) If the criminal charge is dismissed while he is still institutionalized, he is subject to LPS involuntary commitment proceedings. (Pen. Code, § 1370, subds. (a) and (e).) If he needs treatment pending a determination of his outpatient status, LPS procedures govern. (Pen. Code, §§ 1370.3, subd. (e), 1374, subd. (f).) A jail inmate who exhibits mental disorder must be transferred to a 72-hour treatment and evaluation facility (i.e., he must be taken from jail) at which point LPS provisions apply. (Pen. Code, § 4011.6.)

All the 1974 and 1975 amendments dealt with the same general subject and should be harmonized if possible. (County of Placer v. Aetna Cas. etc. Co. (1958) 50 Cal.2d 182, 188-189 [323 P.2d 753].) Although section 1026a omits an express direction for custody pending the release hearing of a state hospital patient, resort to LPS procedures—including the patient’s transfer to an approved treatment and evaluation facility —is consistent with the legislative design exhibited by the companion statutes. A precommitment release hearing under section 1026 and a postcommitment release hearing under section 1026a are directed at the same objective—both seek to determine whether the person may be safely released. In express terms, section 1026 directs a precommitment hearing “in the manner prescribed by law.” Section 1026a calls for a hearing but does not prescribe the manner. No other direction can be implied than one for hearing “in the manner prescribed by law.” Just as section 1026 sub silentio incorporates the LPS conditions into the precommitment hearings (People v. Kelly, supra, 10 Cal.3d 565), so does section 1026a incorporate these conditions into the post-commitment hearing. In both cases, the subject’s temporary place of detention is a treatment and evaluation facility approved by the State Department of Health. (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 5150.)

The infusion of LPS detention procedures into Penal Code determinations creates minor procedural uncertainties and occasions some improvisation. The procedure for involuntary civil commitment was “written into” section 1026 at a time when the civil commitment function rested with the superior court. (See In re Slayback, supra, 209 Cal. at p. 484.) Civil commitment of mentally disordered persons is no longer a judicial function. (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 5002.) Under LPS determinations are not made by the court but by the professional staff of the treatment and evaluation facility. (Welf. & Inst. Code, §§ 5150-5151, 5250-5251.)

It is clear, nevertheless, that postcommitment release determinations under section 1026a are a judicial function. The applicant is entitled to a jury trial. (In re Franklin, supra, 7 Cal.3d at pp. 148-149.) Section 1026a declares that “if the finding of the court be adverse” to release, the applicant must wait a year before reapplying. Thus, section 1026a contemplates an open-court hearing. Whether the 72-hour and 14-day deadlines of LPS govern is not at all clear. Busy trial courts would find difficulty in holding hearings within the 72 hours initially alloted by LPS; most could manage a hearing within the additional 14 days prescribed by LPS. In a county such as San Joaquin, where approved treatment facilities are situated, transportation between the facility and the superior court creates only a minor problem. The transportation problem is magnified in a rural county without its own LPS evaluation facility. Counties of the latter sort may need the help of clarifying statutes.

We conclude that petitioners’ commitment to the San Joaquin County jail pending hearing of their release applications was invalid. The orders to show cause have served their purpose. They are discharged and the writs of habeas corpus are denied.

Reynoso, J., concurred.

Retired Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal sitting under assignment by the Chairperson of the Judicial Council.