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Amdt5.4.5.2.5.3 Civil Commitment and Treatment

Fifth Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The recognition of liberty rights for people with mental disabilities who are involuntarily committed or who voluntarily seek commitment to public institutions is potentially a major development in substantive due process. The states, pursuant to their parens patriae power, have a substantial interest in institutionalizing persons in need of care, both for the protection of such people themselves and for the protection of others.1 A state, however, cannot constitutionally confine without more a nondangerous individual who is capable of surviving safely in freedom by himself or with the help of willing and responsible family members or friends.2 Moreover, a person who is constitutionally confined enjoys constitutionally protected interests in conditions of reasonable care and safety, reasonably nonrestrictive confinement conditions, and such training as may be required by these interests.3 Influential lower court decisions have also found a significant right to treatment4 or training as an appropriate professional would consider reasonable to ensure his safety and to facilitate his ability to function free from bodily restraints5 although the Supreme Court’s approach in this area has been tentative.

For instance, in Youngberg v. Romeo, the Court recognized a liberty right to minimally adequate or reasonable training to ensure safety and freedom from undue restraint.6 Although the lower court had agreed that residents at a state mental hospital are entitled to such treatment as will afford them a reasonable opportunity to acquire and maintain those life skills necessary to cope as effectively as their capacities permit,7 the Supreme Court found that the plaintiff had reduced his claim to training related to safety and freedom from restraints.8 But the Court’s concern for federalism, its reluctance to approve judicial activism in supervising institutions, and its recognition of the budgetary constraints associated with state provision of services caused it to hold that lower federal courts must defer to professional decision-making to determine what level of care was adequate. Professional decisions are presumptively valid and liability can be imposed only when the decision by the professional is such a substantial departure from accepted professional judgment, practice, or standards as to demonstrate that the person responsible actually did not base the decision on such a judgment.9 Presumably, however, the difference between liability for damages and injunctive relief will still afford federal courts considerable latitude in enjoining institutions to better their services in the future, even if they cannot award damages for past failures.10

The Court’s resolution of a case involving persistent sexual offenders suggests that state civil commitment systems, besides confining the dangerously mentally ill, may also act to incapacitate persons predisposed to engage in specific criminal behaviors. In Kansas v. Hendricks,11 the Court upheld a Kansas law that allowed civil commitment without a showing of mental illness, so that a defendant diagnosed as a pedophile could be committed based on his having a mental abnormality that made him likely to engage in acts of sexual violence. Although the Court minimized the use of this expanded nomenclature,12 the concept of mental abnormality appears both more encompassing and less defined than the concept of mental illness. It is unclear how, or whether, the Court would distinguish this case from the indefinite civil commitment of other recidivists such as drug offenders. A subsequent opinion does seem to narrow the Hendricks holding so as to require an additional finding that the defendant would have difficulty controlling his or her behavior.13

Still other issues await exploration.14 Additionally, federal legislation is becoming extensive,15 and state legislative and judicial development of law is highly important because the Supreme Court looks to this law as one source of the interests that the Due Process Clause protects.16

Footnotes

  1.  Jump to essay-1These principles have no application to persons not held in custody by the state. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Social Servs. Dep’t, 489 U.S. 189 (1989) (no due process violation for failure of state to protect an abused child from his parent, even when the social service agency had been notified of possible abuse, and possibility had been substantiated through visits by social worker).
  2.  Jump to essay-2O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 576 (1975). See Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715 (1972); Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480, 491–94 (1980).
  3.  Jump to essay-3Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 324 (1982). Thus, personal security constitutes a historic liberty interest protected substantively by the due process clause. Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 673 (1977) (liberty interest in being free from undeserved corporal punishment in school); Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U.S. 1, 18 (1979) (Justice Powell concurring) (Liberty from bodily restraint always has been recognized as the core of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause from arbitrary governmental actions).
  4.  Jump to essay-4In Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715, 738 (1972), the Court had said that due process requires that the nature and duration of commitment bear some reasonable relation to the purpose for which the individual is committed. Reasoning that if commitment is for treatment and betterment of individuals, it must be accompanied by adequate treatment, several lower courts recognized a due process right. E.g., Wyatt v. Stickney, 325 F. Supp. 781 (M.D. Ala), enforced, 334 F. Supp. 1341 (1971), supplemented, 334 F. Supp. 373 and 344 F. Supp. 387 (M.D.Ala. 1972), aff’d in part, reserved in part, and remanded sub nom. Wyatt v. Aderholt, 503 F.2d 1305 (5th Cir. 1974); Donaldson v. O’Connor, 493 F.2d 507 (5th Cir. 1974), vacated on other grounds, 422 U.S. 563 (1975).
  5.  Jump to essay-5The Court acknowledged that the word habilitation did not have a precise meaning but had been used to refer to programs that train persons with intellectual disabilities to acquire needed skills. Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 324 (1982) ([T]he principal focus of habilitation is upon training and development of needed skills.)
  6.  Jump to essay-6Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 319 (1982).
  7.  Jump to essay-7457 U.S. at 318 n.23.
  8.  Jump to essay-8457 U.S. at 317–18. Concurring, Justices Blackmun, Brennan, and O’Connor, argued that due process guaranteed patients at least that training necessary to prevent them from losing the skills they entered the institution with. Id. at 325. Chief Justice Burger rejected any protected interest in training. Id. at 329. The Court had also avoided a decision on a right to treatment in O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 573 (1975), vacating and remanding a decision recognizing the right and thereby depriving the decision of precedential value. Chief Justice Burger expressly rejected the right there also. Id. at 578. But just four days later the Court denied certiorari to another panel decision from the same circuit that had relied on the circuit's Donaldson decision to establish such a right, leaving the principle alive in that circuit. Burnham v. Department of Public Health, 503 F.2d 1319 (5th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 422 U.S. 1057 (1975). See also Allen v. Illinois, 478 U.S. 364, 373 (1986) (dictum that person civilly committed as sexually dangerous person might be entitled to protection under the self-incrimination clause if he could show that his confinement is essentially identical to that imposed upon felons with no need for psychiatric care).
  9.  Jump to essay-9457 U.S. at 323.
  10.  Jump to essay-10E.g., Ohlinger v. Watson, 652 F. 2d 775, 779 (9th Cir. 1980); Welsch v. Likins, 550 F.2d 1122, 1132 (8th Cir. 1977). Of course, lack of funding will create problems with respect to injunctive relief as well. Cf. New York State Ass’n for Retarded Children v. Carey, 631 F.2d 162, 163 (2d Cir. 1980). The Supreme Court has limited the injunctive powers of the federal courts in similar situations.
  11.  Jump to essay-11521 U.S. 346 (1997).
  12.  Jump to essay-12521 U.S. at 359. But see Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U.S. 71, 80 (1992) (holding that a state can not hold a person suffering from a personality disorder without clear and convincing proof of a mental illness).
  13.  Jump to essay-13Kansas v. Crane, 534 U.S. 407 (2002).
  14.  Jump to essay-14See Developments in the Law: Civil Commitment of the Mentally Ill, 87 Harv. L. Rev. 1190 (1974). In Mills v. Rogers, 457 U.S. 291 (1982), the Court had before it the issue of the due process right of committed mental patients at state hospitals to refuse administration of antipsychotic drugs. An intervening decision of the state’s highest court had measurably strengthened the patients’ rights under both state and federal law and the Court remanded for reconsideration in light of the state court decision. See also Rennie v. Klein, 653 F.2d 836 (3d Cir. 1981).
  15.  Jump to essay-15Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 1975, Pub. L. No. 94-103, 89 Stat. 486, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 6000 et seq., as to which see Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1 (1981); Mental Health Systems Act, 94 Stat. 1565, 42 U.S.C. §§ 9401 et seq.
  16.  Jump to essay-16See, e.g., Mills v. Rogers, 457 U.S. 291, 299–300 (1982). On the question of procedural due process rights that apply to civil commitments, see The Problem of Civil Commitment, infra.
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