People v. Garlotte

958 P.2d 469, 21 Colo. J. 959, 1997 Colo. App. LEXIS 160, 1997 WL 365774
CourtColorado Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 3, 1997
Docket95CA0667
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 958 P.2d 469 (People v. Garlotte) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Colorado Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Garlotte, 958 P.2d 469, 21 Colo. J. 959, 1997 Colo. App. LEXIS 160, 1997 WL 365774 (Colo. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinions

Opinion by

Judge ROTHENBERG.

Defendant, Irwin H. Garlotte, appeals the trial court order revoking his conditional release and ordering his return to the Colorado State Hospital. He contends that §§ 16-8-115.5, C.R.S. (1996 Cum.Supp.) and 16 — 8— 102(4.5), C.R.S. (1986 Repl.Vol. 8A) are unconstitutional insofar as they allow revocation of a conditional release and the recommitment of an insanity acquittee based solely on the violation of a condition of release. We reject his contention but remand for further proceedings.

As a result of an October 1984 incident, defendant was charged with attempted first degree murder, criminal mischief, and felony menacing. The evidence showed that, at the time of the commission of the crime, he was delusional and had shot a perfect stranger, a visiting nurse, whom he believed was a member of a devil cult that was harassing him.

In January 1985, following a bench trial, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. [472]*472Following his acquittal, he was committed to the state hospital until such time as he was eligible for release. Although that was his first psychiatric hospitalization, reports contained in the record indicate defendant had suffered from psychotic symptoms for several years before that admission, and they listed his diagnosis as “Schizophrenia, paranoid type, chronic.”

After defendant spent five years in the state hospital, the trial court granted the hospital’s request to place him on conditional release pursuant to § 16-8-120(3), C.R.S. (1986 Repl.Vol. 8A). In doing so, the court incorporated the recommendation of a staff psychiatrist which stated that, because defendant no longer suffered from an abnormal mental condition that would be likely to cause him to be dangerous in the reasonably foreseeable future, he was eligible for conditional release.

Defendant’s release was conditioned on terms contained in the psychiatrist’s letter and incorporated into the court’s order. As pertinent here, those conditions, which were to remain in effect for one year unless modified or terminated by further court order, required defendant to live in Biloxi, Mississippi; to participate in outpatient services; to refrain from using alcohol and nonpres-cribed drugs; and to submit to random urine screens.

The record includes a continuity of care report submitted by the forensic psychiatrists emphasizing defendant’s need for continued treatment and supervision while on release. It states, inter alia, that:

[W]e felt that [defendant’s] stability was the result of the excellent treatment and supervision provided by the mental health center and therefore recommended that he be continued on Conditional Release, (emphasis added)

Approximately two years later, the People petitioned to revoke defendant’s conditional release. The court denied the petition, after finding defendant had not violated any conditions of his release. However, it ordered new conditions which were to continue for one year.

In June 1994, the People again moved to revoke defendant’s conditional release, asserting he had violated the terms of his release by submitting three urine screens that tested positive for drugs in September 1993, March 1994, and April 1994; by failing to submit to random urinalysis; and by providing only five drug screens during the preceding year.

The People alleged that, because defendant had violated the conditions of his conditional release, he was ineligible to remain on conditional release. Another continuity of care report from the forensic psychiatrists states that:

The fact that [defendant] is abusing substances cannot be tolerated. It was his substance abuse which led to the instant offense resulting in his Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity commitment in the first place.

At the revocation hearing, the court admitted evidence showing defendant continued to suffer from an abnormal mental condition and constituted a danger to himself or others. Specifically, the People presented a psychiatrist from the state hospital who testified that: (1) he had personally evaluated defendant and had followed defendant’s progress while , on conditional release; (2) he also had reviewed reports from the outpatient clinic in Biloxi, Mississippi, where defendant had reported for medication and testing; (3) in a recent incident at the Mississippi health clinic, defendant had walked in and pretended to shoot people; (4) defendant also had tested positive for illegal drugs in three urine screens and had admitted using alcohol; (5) defendant had failed regularly to submit monthly urine screens; (6) defendant’s use of street drugs was intimately connected with the recurrence of his psychotic symptoms; and (7) during the preceding five years in which defendant had been on conditional release, he had suffered from the same kind of delusional thinking as he manifested when he shot the nurse. The psychiatrist gave his opinion that, because of defendant’s delusional thinking and failure to abstain from nonprescription drugs and/or alcohol, his mental illness had again caused him to be a danger [473]*473to others, and that he was ineligible to remain on conditional release.

Defendant objected to the admission of any evidence of his mental illness and dangerousness on the basis that the People had failed to include such allegations in their motion for revocation, thus denying him fair notice of these potential grounds for revocation. Also, because the People’s motion had cited only defendant’s alleged violations of his release conditions, defendant claimed he had suffered prejudice in his ability to respond to any other ground for revocation.

The trial court agreed and, after admitting all of the People’s evidence, it refused to make findings about defendant’s mental condition or dangerousness. It found instead that defendant had violated two of the terms of his conditional release by failing to submit to monthly urine screens and by submitting three positive urine screens. Based solely on those violations, the court revoked defendant’s conditional release and remanded him to the state hospital.

I.

Defendant contends the trial court erred in recommitting him to the state hospital without finding both that he was suffering from an abnormal mental condition and that he was a danger to himself or others. Relying on Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U.S. 71, 112 S.Ct. 1780, 118 L.Ed.2d 437 (1992), he asserts that §§ 16-8-115.5 and 16-8-102(4.5) violate the due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment and Colo. Const, art. II, § 25, insofar as they authorize revocation of his conditional release based solely on noncompliance with the terms of that release. We disagree.

A. Foucha v. Louisiana

The defendant in Foucha was charged with aggravated burglary and illegal discharge of a firearm, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was ordered confined in a state psychiatric hospital. He eventually sought release, and following a mental evaluation, a panel of three doctors concluded he had recovered from the drug induced psychosis from which he had suffered upon commitment, and he no longer suffered from a mental illness. The evidence showed Foucha was in “good shape” mentally except for an antisocial personality.

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Bluebook (online)
958 P.2d 469, 21 Colo. J. 959, 1997 Colo. App. LEXIS 160, 1997 WL 365774, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-garlotte-coloctapp-1997.