Ex Parte Johnson

Horney, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from an order of the Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City (Harlan, J.) denying John F. Johnson, Jr., (the alleged incompetent), a jury trial on the issue of his competency in an incompetency proceeding pending in said court. By the appeal the alleged incompetent seeks an answer to one, or both, of two questions: (i) Is a finding of sanity by a court or jury in a court of law under the provisions of Code (Cum. Supp. 1957), Art. 59, sec. 20, binding upon an equity court in a proceeding for the appointment of a trustee to take charge of and manage the property of the alleged incompetent?; and (ii) if not, is the alleged incompetent entitled to demand and have a jury trial on the issue of his competency under the provisions of Code (1951), Art. 16, sec. 134, which provides for the determination of the sanity of an alleged lunatic by a jury in an equity court 1 upon the filing of a petition for a writ of de lunatico inquirendo ?

The alleged incompetent, after a quarrel with his sister on October 19, 1956, was arrested and committed to Springfield State Hospital by a Police Magistrate of Baltimore City, apparently pursuant to the provisions of Article 59, supra, sec. 1, and Article 59 (1951 Code), secs. 10 or 11. Thereafter, when it appeared that the alleged incompetent might inherit money or property from his father’s estate, then being administered in Florida, the sister, J. Dolores Johnson, filed a petition in Circuit Court No. 2 (Oppenheimer, J.) for the appointment of a' committee to take charge of and manage the person 2 and property of the alleged incompetent, pursuant ³⁹³ to the provisions of Code (1951), Art. 16, sec. 135. The petition was accompanied by the certificates of two neuropsychiatrists to the effect that the alleged incompetent was of unsound mind, incapable of governing himself and the management of his property, due to an incapacitating mental disorder of indefinite duration. Judge Oppenheimer passed the usual order prescribed by Section 135, supra, for a hearing on December 21, 1956.

However, the alleged incompetent employed counsel, filed an answer, denying insanity or mental illness, and requested a jury trial. Before any further proceedings were had in the equity court, the alleged incompetent filed a petition in the Baltimore City Court (Sodaro, J.) on January 28, 1957, for the purpose of having his sanity determined by a jury, pursuant to Section 20 of Article 59, supra. On February 4, 1957, a jury empanelled for the purpose determined that the alleged incompetent was sane, whereupon Judge Sodaro ordered that he be discharged from the mental institution in which he had been confined. Thereafter the alleged incompetent filed two motions in Circuit Court No. 2 — one being a motion to quash, the other a motion to dismiss — to the effect that a jury having determined that he was sane, the proceeding which seeks to have him declared to be incompetent by reason of a mental disability ought to be quashed or dismissed.

Judge Harlan passed an order on March 26, 1957, denying both motions, and sent the issue of competency to the Superior Court of Baltimore City (Byrnes, J.), a court of law, for trial, but Judge Byrnes refused to empanel a jury because he believed the issue was res judicata. Subsequently another motion entitled a “Motion for Ruling on Right of Alleged Incompetent to a Jury Trial”, accompanied by a “certificate of employment” of the alleged incompetent by a manufacturer of welding and cutting apparatus as a turret lathe operator, was filed in Circuit Court No. 2 alleging: “1. That this matter was originally sent by this Court to a Court of Law to determine the mental capacity of this Petitioner to handle an estate that is now otherwise payable to him. That the Court of ³⁹⁴ Law in this case refused to empanell a Jury for the reason that that Court felt that the previous ruling of the Baltimore City