Press enter after choosing selection

Sanity Case Ruling Worries Prosecutors

Sanity Case Ruling Worries Prosecutors image
Parent Issue
Day
27
Month
September
Year
1974
Copyright
Copyright Protected
Rights Held By
Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

Case Ruling

FRIDAY SEP27 1974 * C7

Worries Prosecutors

Sanity

BY OWEN ESHENRODER News Courts Reporter

Defendants in criminal trials who are found not guilty by reason of insanity will no longer be automatically committed to mental institutions without benefit of a civil commitment hearing.

That is the gist of a recent decision of the Michigan Supreme Court which has Washtenaw County Prosecuting Attorney William F. Delhey, as well as prosecutors around the state, distressed over its apparent ramifications.

The high court, ruling earlier this month in the Wayne County case of accused sex offender James McQuillan, found the state’s automatic commitment statute an unconstitutional deprivation of due process of law.

That statute read, in part, “Any person, who is tried for a crime and is acquitted by the court or jury by reason of insanity, shall be committed immediately by order of the court to the department of mental health for treatment in an appropriate state hospital..."

Basically, the decision means that criminal defendants must be given the same examinations and observations accorded to non-criminal inmates, and they have the same release provision protections as persons committed through civil actions.

But Delhey forsees problems resulting from the ruling. “It’s going to be a real dilemma,” he said.

Delhey is primarily concerned that prosecutors who take a case to trial arguing that the defendant is sane and ought to be convicted will be forced, upon losing the case, to turn around and argue at a civil commitment hearing that the same defendant is insane ana should be committed.

“The Ernest Bishop case is a perfect example,"  Delhey explained. “I’m going to feel like the world’s greatest hypocrite claiming that Bishop is insane when deep down in my heart I believe he is not and never has been insane.”

Ernest R. Bishop Jr. is the admitted killer of U-M graduate student Margaret Ann Phillips, who was shot to death in her Ann Arbor apartment in July of 1969. Bishop was tried for murder and found not guilty by reason of insanity the following January. He was subsequently committed to Ionia State Hospital.

According to the Supreme Court ruling, inmates like Bishop must be given examinations within 60 days of the Sept. 11 decision or be discharged from the institutions where they are being confined.

"I’ll file on Bishop, because I believe he’s a mean man and capable of killing again," Delhey said. “But I'm going to feel like a hypocrite because I’ve already argued during his trial that he is not insane . . . This will be a complete about-face.”

Should Bishop elect to contest Delhey’s insanity contention, the matter would go to trial in Probate Court just like a contested civil commitment.

A more immediate problem for Delhey and other county prosecutors in Michigan is determining just how many inmates are institutionalized under circumstances similar to Bishop’s. "We don’t even know at this point who all we have from this county still in the mental health system somewhere,” Delhey noted.

Washtenaw County Public Defender George Alexander also envisions some difficulties resulting from the high court ruling.

“I think the idea behind it is proper, that is insuring due process for everyone,” said Alexander, “but I believe it's going to cause us some practical- problems.”

Alexander pointed out that juries may now be less likely to go along with not guilty by reason of insanity defenses. "People are going to think that if they find a person not guilty by reason of insanity. he will be free to walk out of the courtroom. The jury may think more of the disposition than the law governing the case.”

(Unlike other cases, it is permissible for juries to be advised of the disposition of a case in which a not guilty by reason of insanity defense has been raised.)