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ALBANY---A temporary stay on a Supreme Court justice's order to release 12 sex criminals from psychiatric hospitals is in place after Gov. George Pataki's filed an appeal of that order on Friday.
On Tuesday, Manhattan Supreme Court justice Jacqueline Silbermann ruled that Pataki's order to hold the 12 men in custody in mental hospitals even though they had completed their prison sentences was illegal.
The men will remain in custody for now.
The judge said that the state had violated the state's Mental Hygiene Law which requires that prior to their detention, the men must be examined by two psychiatrists appointed by the court, not handpicked by the state. After the examinations are completed, the state must then return to court, notify the inmate's attorney and ask for a court hearing. The judge said the state had failed to comply with the process and thus violated the men's due process rights.
Stephen Harkavy, deputy director of Mental Health Legal Services who represents the 12 detainees said that the state did not comply with corrections law. He said he'll ask the appellate court to lift the stay which keeps the men involuntarily committed and it's likely the matter would then go to the Court of Appeals and could take months to be decided.
The men, whose crimes include the rape and sodomy of children, were being held under the state's involuntary commitment law which regularly deals with the non-criminal mentally ill. But civil rights proponents say it was a violation of the men's rights to hold them for something that they "might do".
Pataki has been unsuccessful in his years-long attempt for legislation that would legalize civil confinement and decided to "push the envelope" by ordering them held in a psychiatric hospital under the state's involuntary commitment law after they completed their sentences.
Pataki said he had no doubt that he had the legal authority to take the action that he did. 11-19-05
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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