United States Second Circuit

Denial of habeas petition, in case involving recommitment proceedings for a defendant pleading not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect (NRRMDD), is affirmed where it was not objectively unreasonable for the state appellate court to conclude that NRRMDD defendants are an exceptional class of individuals who may properly be treated somewhat differently from persons subject to civil commitment and that the recommitment provisions of New York Criminal Procedure Law section 330.20(14) have a direct and substantial relationship with the State's interest in protecting the public safety, safeguarding the rights of insanity acquittees, and providing treatment for those acquittees who suffer from a mental illness.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/21/2006
• Published 06/21/2006

Judges

• JOSÉ A. CABRANES, Circuit Judge., Before WINTER, CABRANES, and SACK, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Lisa Volpe (Sidney Hirschfeld, Director, Mental Hygiene Legal Service, Dennis B. Feld, on the brief), Mental Hygiene Legal Service, Second Judicial Department, Mineola, NY, for Petitioner-Appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Caroline R. Donhauser, Assistant District Attorney (Charles J. Hynes, District Attorney of Kings County, Leonard Joblove and Victor Barall, Assistant District Attorneys, on the brief), Office of the District Attorney of Kings County, Brooklyn, NY, for Respondents-Appellees., Jeffrey P. Metzler, Assistant Solicitor General (Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York, Robert H. Easton, Deputy Solicitor General, on the brief), Office of the Attorney General of the State of New York, New York, NY, for Respondents-Appellees.