Edwards v. State

Page 600

943 S.W.2d 600

328 Ark. 394

Joe E. EDWARDS, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CR 96-10.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

May 5, 1997.

Samuel A. Perroni, Patrick R. James, Little Rock, for Appellant.

Winston Bryant, Attorney General, Clint Miller, Deputy Attorney General, Little Rock, for Appellee.

BROWN, Justice.

Appellant Joe E. Edwards has filed this interlocutory appeal from the trial court's order denying his motion to dismiss on grounds of double jeopardy, estoppel, and due process. The trial court correctly denied the motion to dismiss, and we affirm.

On March 17, 1995, according to the criminal information filed against him, Edwards abducted his attorney, David Stills. During a subsequent deposition, Detective Steve Parker of the Springdale Police Department testified that on that date, he and Detective Lester Coger of the same department responded to a call that an individual, Steve Summers, had found a man who had been tied up on Cambridge Street in Springdale. The man was David Stills, and he told Summers, according to Detective Parker:

Joe's gone off the deep end. He's accusing me of having sex with his wife and giving her drugs and said he was going to kill us both and then himself.

When Detective Parker arrived at the scene, he found neck ties and duct tape on the ground next to Summers's car.

On March 20, 1995, Detective Parker signed a Petition to Involuntarily Admit Person with Mental Illness that had been prepared by the Washington County Prosecutor's Office. In the petition, he averred that Edwards should be involuntarily admitted to an appropriate facility for treatment of a mental illness based on the following factual assertion:

The Respondent kidnapped a victim at gun point, tied the victim up, then picked up his wife at her place of employment and returned her to his residence with the purpose of killing her and the other victim.

Detective Parker stated that Edwards presented a clear and present danger to himself or others as defined by Ark.Code Ann. § 20-47-207(c)(1)-(2) (Repl.1991).

As a result of the petition, the probate court found that there was probable cause to believe that Edwards presented a potential danger to himself and to others and ordered the Washington County Sheriff to take Edwards to the Ozark Guidance Center for detention and evaluation. As a result of the evaluation, the staff psychiatrist at Ozark Guidance Center determined to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Edwards's mental and medical condition required immediate hospitalization. On March 27, 1995, after Edwards's counsel waived a hearing on the matter, the probate court entered an order committing Edwards to the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit at Baptist Medical Center in Little Rock for a period of 30 days. In doing so, the probate court again found that there was probable cause that Edwards suffered from a mental disease and constituted a clear and present danger to himself and to others. On April 25, 1995, the probate court ordered Edwards's commitment extended for an additional 90 days based upon his physicians' determination that he required further treatment for his mental condition.

On July 24, 1995, the date he was scheduled to be released, Edwards was charged by the Washington County prosecutor with kidnapping and terroristic threatening in connection with the abduction of David Stills. The probate court also ordered an extension of his commitment until July 28, 1995, during which time he would be released to the custody of a physician who was directed to transport him to the Washington County sheriff's office for arraignment on July 27, 1995. Edwards was arraigned on that date.

On September 15, 1995, Edwards moved to dismiss the criminal charges on grounds of double jeopardy, estoppel, and violation of his due process rights. The prosecutor responded that Edwards's counsel actually drafted the orders and solicited the aid of the prosecuting attorney's office for Edwards's continued treatment at Baptist Medical Center. The State further contended that (1) the estoppel theories did not apply because the involuntary admission of a suspect of a crime does not constitute an adjudication of that person's mental capacity to commit crime; and (2) Edwards was not unduly deprived of his liberty for purposes of double jeopardy because there was no "same offense" for former jeopardy and because Edwards's counsel assisted in the orders for treatment at Baptist Medical Center.

A hearing was held on the motion, and following the hearing, the trial court entered an order denying Edwards's motion. In its ruling from the bench, the trial court noted that the civil commitment was not for an "offense," that civil commitment proceedings and criminal proceedings involved different standards and elements and were governed by different statutes, and that the burden of proof for the two proceedings was different.

Edwards filed this interlocutory appeal from the trial court's order.

I. Double Jeopardy

We first observe that it is well established that an order denying a motion to dismiss based on double-jeopardy considerations is an appealable decision. Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651, 97 S.Ct. 2034, 52 L.Ed.2d 651 (1977); Sherman v. State, 326 Ark. 153, 931 S.W.2d 417 (1996). The essence of Edwards's double-jeopardy argument is that the State has already taken away his liberty by virtue of the civil commitment and now seeks to prosecute him based on the same conduct, which jeopardizes his liberty once more. He directs our attention to both the Arkansas Constitution and the United States Constitution:

[A]nd no person, for the same offense, shall be twice put in jeopardy of life or liberty[.]

Ark. Const. art. 2, § 8.

[N]or shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb[.]

U.S. Const. amend. 5.

The United States Supreme Court has observed that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States Constitution provides several protections:

It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal. It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction. And it protects against multiple punishments for the same offense. North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 717, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 2076, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969) (footnotes omitted). These protections stem from the underlying premise that a defendant should not be twice tried or punished for the same offense. United States v. Wilson, 420 U.S. 332, 339, 95 S.Ct. 1013, 1020, 43 L.Ed.2d 232 (1975).

Schiro v. Farley, 510 U.S. 222, 229, 114 S.Ct. 783, 788-89, 127 L.Ed.2d 47 (1994). See also Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651, 661, 97 S.Ct. 2034, 2041, 52 L.Ed.2d 651 (1977)("The 'twice put in jeopardy' language of the Constitution thus relates to a potential, i.e., the risk that an accused for a second time will be convicted of the 'same offense' for which he was initially tried."), quoting Price v. Georgia, 398 U.S. 323, 326, 90 S.Ct. 1757, 1759, 26 L.Ed.2d 300 (1970).

There is no doubt that civil commitment results in a significant deprivation of liberty that requires due process protection. Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 99 S.Ct. 1804, 60 L.Ed.2d 323 (1979). See also Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480, 100 S.Ct. 1254, 63 L.Ed.2d 552 (1980); Honor v. Yamuchi, 307 Ark. 324, 820 S.W.2d 267 (1991). And we have held that the burden of proof on the State for civil commitments is by clear and convincing evidence. Schock v. Thomas, 274 Ark. 493, 625 S.W.2d 521 (1981). Yet, Edwards cites us to no authority, and we know of none, where a jurisdiction has held that double-jeopardy protection attaches to civil commitments. Indeed, authority from other jurisdictions appears to stand for just the opposite proposition.

A seminal case in this area is State v. Hudson, 121 N.H. 6, 425 A.2d 255 (1981). In Hudson, the State sought an involuntary commitment for Hudson, relying in part on evidence of a sexual assault conviction. Hudson argued that because he was already tried on the sexual assault charge, the commitment proceedings were barred under principles of double jeopardy. The Supreme Court of New Hampshire dismissed the argument:

The defendant misconstrues the nature of the involuntary commitment proceedings. The January 24, 1980, hearing was not held to ascertain the defendant's guilt or innocence concerning the assault or any other charge. Its express and sole purpose was to determine whether the defendant's mental condition was such that he was a danger to himself or others. The mere fact that some of the evidence used to establish the defendant's dangerousness related to an incident for which he had already been tried and convicted does not convert the civil proceeding into a criminal trial.

State v. Hudson, 425 A.2d at 258 (citations omitted). See also Rodrigues v. Gudeman, 794 F.2d 1458, 1460 n. 2 (9th Cir.1986)("A person committed because he is insane is not being 'punished' for a crime."), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 964, 107 S.Ct. 465, 93 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986); Hubbart v. Superior Court, 50 Cal.App.4th 1155, 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 268, 286 (6 Dist.1996)("[I]t would be singularly inappropriate to apply double jeopardy provisions to these types of proceedings [commitment under the Sexually Violent Predators Act] where the issue to be determined is not whether respondent committed an act or offense, but whether respondent suffers from a mental condition which makes him dangerous to others."), quoting People v. Superior Court, 233 Cal.App.3d 477, 284 Cal.Rptr. 601, 607 (2 Dist.1991); Matter of Lomax, 367 A.2d 1272, 1279 (D.C.App.1976)("A person alleged to be mentally ill is not on trial for having committed an 'offense,' and we do not view civil commitment--aimed basically at treatment for the afflicted individual--as comparable to punishment for the conviction of a crime."), vacated for other reasons, 386 A.2d 1185 (D.C.App.1978); Matter of Linehan, 557 N.W.2d 171 (M...