Daniels v. Superintendent, Clifton T. Perkins State Hospital

Lowe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellant was confined in the Clifton Perkins State Hospital, pursuant to Md. Code, Art. 59, § 27, after he had been found not guilty of a homicide by reason of insanity. Approximately two years later he petitioned for release as permitted by that section. 1 Application for release under § 27 is “pursuant to the provisions of § 15 of this article.” See also Keiner v. Superintendent, 240 Md. 608 . Section 15 allows any mental patient to petition the equity court for release. 2 It sets forth a unique procedure for ¹⁷⁵ hearing the petition, attempting to provide abundant safeguards against wrongful commitment.

The result is a bastard proceeding, for the petition is heard in equity but the patient has the right to a jury, and the trial procedure is as a civil action at law. Apparently, the legislature sought to provide a petitioner with the procedural safeguards of proceedings at law, the conscience of an equity court and the ¹⁷⁶ availability of a jury trial — historically sacred and constitutionally sanctified as the deus ex machina of justice and right. Upon filing his petition for release in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, appellant prayed, and received, a jury trial. When the “god machine” failed to release him, he appealed to us, complaining that the verdict resulted from the chancellor’s having unconstitutionally assigned him the burden of proving his sanity.

He asks one question only: “Is placing the burden of proof on the patient seeking release from a state mental hospital after having been found not guilty by reason of insanity a violation of the patients right to equal protection?” Appellant’s contention that he was denied equal protection is based upon two arguments. First, he complains that by regulation 10.04.03 of the Maryland State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, civil involuntary committees are entitled to periodic administrative hearings at which the Department must affirmatively establish the petitioner’s insanity “by clear and convincing evidence”. 3 Presumably because appellant was compelled to carry the burden of proving sanity upon his petition under the judicial release statute, the only route available to him, 4 he contends that he was denied equal protection. Although the legislature authorized the Department to provide a procedure to release civilly committed patients, that authority did not extend to the establishment of judicial procedures for release of committees under § 27. See Md. Code, Art. 59, § 18 (a).

Relying in part on Bush v. Director, 22 Md. App. 353 , we said in Davis v. Director, 29 Md. App. 705 , 717: “We do not deem it to have been the legislative ¹⁷⁷ intent in authorizing the Secretary of Health and Mental Hygiene to make rules and regulations for the administration and enforcement of the Mental Hygiene article and for the operation and administration of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, that the Secretary, in exercise of such authority, could set the standard of proof in judicial proceedings, including those related to matters completely independent of his responsibilities, duties, and jurisdiction.” Furthermore, the judicial release procedure set forth in § 15 should not be entwined or confused with the Department’s administrative release procedure in Reg. 10.04.03. The burdens are different, the standards are different and certainly the tribunals are different. There is no constitutional requirement that procedural protection, from whatever source it may emanate, be reduced to the lowest common denominator. The Department’s administrative procedure does not supplant a civil committee’s application for judicial release.

Rather, it provides an additional route to release, more as an administrative safeguard to the Department, than as a substitute for judicial release. The judicial release procedure remains available to civil, as well as criminal, patients, 5 and when invoked the same standards are applied, including the assigned burden of proof to both classifications of committees. Since the judicial release procedure is available to all, it appears that appellant’s real complaint is that he is denied equal protection because the additional administrative release procedure available to civil committees is not available to criminal committees. However, if that is the ¹⁷⁸ crux of his claim, he has missed an important procedural step.

Appellant has not applied for administrative release and been denied access to that procedure. Instead, he immediately sought judicial release under the statute. Perhaps more significantly, he did not argue in the circuit court that he was entitled to the administrative procedure. Having failed to do so, he cannot now protest what he perceives to be an unconstitutional dearth of an administrative remedy.

Md. Rule 1085. Even if appellant’s contention that he was denied equal protection were properly before us, he assumes a proposition with which we would have to disagree: that the judicial procedure affords less protection than would the administrative procedure. Conceding that the procedures are not equal (i.e., the same), the protections afforded judicially are no less than those afforded administratively. That concern went to its repose in the persuasive Fourth Circuit opinion of Dower v. Boslow, 539 F. 2d 969 .

The alleged unequal protection argued there was the variance in the standards of proof between the judicial release procedure for defective delinquents committed to Patuxent Institute pursuant to Md. Code, Art. 31B, § 5, and the same administrative procedure regulation protested here. Judge Craven, writing for the Court, said: “We are unable to conclude that a person is afforded less protection by a judicial procedure which requires proof by a preponderance of the evidence, but which also grants the important right of jury trial, than he is given by an administrative procedure before a single hearing officer, even though the state is required there to prove the issue by clear and convincing evidence. We are inclined to think it may be greater. New lawyers, we think, would give up trial by jury in favor of a higher burden of proof before an administrative officer.

The right to a jury may well more than counterbalance a difference in standard of proof. Indeed, in a similar context the Supreme Court held that failure to provide ‘judicial review ¹⁷⁹ before a jury’ to persons committed at the expiration of his criminal sentence, where that right was afforded to those involuntarily committed outside the criminal context, denied equal protection.” (footnote omitted). Dower v. Boslow, 539 F. 2d at 972 . This brings us to the second portion of appellant’s equal protection claim.

During oral argument he informed us that the “customary trial procedure” in nisi prius courts is to assign different burdens of proof to petitioners seeking judicial release under § 15, depending upon whether the petitioner was committed under a civil or criminal commitment procedure. If civilly committed, the Department is given the burden of proving insanity. Appellant contends that, by contrast, because he was a criminal committee, he was given the burden of proving sanity. This argument is conjectural, not a matter of evidence in the record and surely not a proper subject of judicial notice.

Even if appellant’s information is correct, we would have to take judicial notice that the trial courts generally apply erroneous standards and further find that appellant was denied equal protection because the judge in his case did not err. The contradiction in that premise is apparent. We are concerned, therefore, only with whether the trial judge in this case properly assigned the burden of proof to appellant when he charged the jury that: “ ... the burden of proving the issues to you rests with the Plaintiff.”, not with what other nisi prius judges may have done. Unhesitatingly, we hold that the judge in this case was correct in assigning appellant the burden of proving his sanity.

If appellant’s general procedural postulate is correct, we assume the erring judges will mend