United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 00-1071
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
PETER A. FILIPPI,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
[Hon. Ernest C. Torres, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Boudin, Stahl and Lynch,
Circuit Judges.
Robert B. Mann, by appointment of the court, with whom Mann
& Mitchell was on brief for appellant.
Donald C. Lockhart, Assistant United States Attorney, with
whom Margaret E. Curran, United States Attorney, and James H.
Leavey, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief for the
United States.
May 2, 2000
BOUDIN, Circuit Judge. In March 1999, a federal grand
jury indicted Peter A. Filippi on charges of operating a
racketeering enterprise and racketeering conspiracy, 18 U.S.C.
§§ 1962(c), (d) (1994), and related charges concerning
extortionate credit and illegal gambling. Id. §§ 892, 894,
1955. Filippi then filed a motion asking that he be declared
incompetent to stand trial because he suffered from vascular
dementia and was unable to assist his counsel. After a limited
examination, the government's psychiatrist agreed. Thereafter,
in January 2000, the district court found that Filippi was not
competent to stand trial and should be committed to a federal
facility for evaluation for a period not to exceed four months
pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4241(d).
Section 4241(d)--the centerpiece of this case--provides
inter alia that where the district court finds a defendant
incompetent to stand trial by reason of mental disease or
defect, the court "shall" commit the defendant to the custody of
the Attorney General, who is required to hospitalize the
defendant for treatment and "for such a reasonable period of
time, not to exceed four months, as is necessary to determine
whether there is a substantial probability that in the
foreseeable future [the defendant] will attain the capacity to
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permit the trial to proceed." Id. Another provision, not here
pertinent, governs where the initial examination does not
establish such a "substantial probability." See id. § 4246.
Although the finding of incompetency was to Filippi's
liking, the commitment order was not. He objected on the ground
that the medical evidence showed that he suffered from vascular
dementia, that the condition is irreversible, and that therefore
confinement for purposes of diagnosis served no legitimate
purpose and thus violated the Due Process Clause. The
government does not concede that Filippi is irreversibly
incompetent, but the district court made no finding on the
point. Instead, the court concluded that where a defendant was
found incompetent to stand trial, Congress had provided for
automatic hospitalization for a limited period to permit an
inpatient diagnosis, and it rejected Filippi's constitutional
attack on the statute.
Filippi then filed a notice of appeal from the
commitment order and sought a stay successively from the
district court and from this court. Like the district court,
this court denied the stay, but we expedited this appeal. The
government asserts that this court lacks jurisdiction over the
appeal and says that in any event the statute and the commitment
order do not violate the Constitution. We find that we do have
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jurisdiction but agree with the government as to the
constitutionality of the statute and order.
On the question of jurisdiction, Filippi concedes that
the commitment order is not a "final decision" resolving this
case within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (1994), which
confers on us "jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions
of the district courts"; and none of the statutory provisions
explicitly allowing for interlocutory appeals applies here.
See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3731. However, Filippi asserts that the
order incarcerating him for up to four months is reviewable
under the collateral-order doctrine, see Cohen v. Beneficial
Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949), and its progeny.
In this circuit, such a collateral order must be
distinct from the merits, definitive as to the issue to be
reviewed, affect interests that could not be vindicated by
appeal after a final judgment, and present a significant legal
issue (as opposed, for example, to the mere challenge to the
exercise of discretion). United States v. Kouri-Perez, 187 F.3d
1, 5 (1st Cir. 1999). The government concedes that the first
and third requirements are satisfied but says that the second
and fourth requirements have not been met.
On the first of these two disputed issues--whether the
ruling to be reviewed is definitive--the government is right in
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saying that Filippi's competency to stand trial has not yet been
finally determined (since he is even now being examined) but
wrong in thinking that this matters. The requirement of a
definitive ruling is meant to avoid premature review of an
undeveloped issue. Here, the order that Filippi is challenging
is his initial commitment, which is now occurring; and the
constitutional issue he seeks to present was addressed and
expressly decided by the district court.
As for the significance of the legal issue, it is true
that the two circuits that have addressed the constitutional
issue both agreed with the government and upheld the statute.
But the issue is an open one in this circuit, its importance is
obvious both for this case and many others, and we think the
constitutional attack is not frivolous even though we ultimately
reject it and believe it reasonably clear that the Supreme Court
would do likewise. Thus, there is enough significance to the
issue to warrant review under the collateral-order doctrine.
Turning to the merits, we assume arguendo that the
statute means exactly what it says, namely, that the district
court has no discretion in the matter and must commit the
defendant for an initial period of up to four months after
finding him incompetent to stand trial. This may be an
overstatement--suppose, for example, the defendant was close to
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death. But no such extraordinary claim has been pressed in this
case and, whatever the possible implicit exceptions, the statute
certainly establishes a general rule of some breadth and does
not appear to call for any case-by-case choice by the district
court as to whether to incarcerate once the incompetency finding
has been made.
It is the use of a general rule that gives Filippi's
constitutional argument such force as it may possess. Filippi
has not yet been found guilty of a crime and is not being
detained as a flight risk or danger to the community; nor is
there any suggestion that his mental condition makes him
dangerous to himself or to others. There is not even a finding,
although possibly one could be made, that an in-hospital
examination is necessary for government experts to make a more
careful determination whether Filippi is afflicted with vascular
dementia or to elicit evidence as to whether there is a
"substantial probability" that he will soon recover sufficient
capacity to stand trial.
The Due Process Clause has been taken to protect
certain "fundamental rights" from unreasonable impairment, even
where there is no challenge to the fairness of the procedures
used, Washington v. Glucksberg, 117 S. Ct. 2258, 2267 (1997),
and among such rights an individual's interest in his "liberty"
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is surely at the top of the list. United States v. Salerno, 481
U.S. 739, 750 (1987). Filippi's liberty is certainly being
impaired by the order, but clearly the government has a
compelling interest in pursuing the diagnosis; Filippi, after
all, has been indicted by a grand jury for serious crimes but
now claims that he cannot be tried and punished because his
mental condition makes him unable to assist his counsel.
The constitutional question is whether automatic
commitment with substantial safeguards as to duration is a
reasonable, and sufficiently "narrowly tailored," accommodation
of the competing interests. See Glucksberg, 117 S. Ct. at 2268.
In our view, Congress could reasonably think that, in almost all
cases, temporary incarceration would permit a more careful and
accurate diagnosis before the court is faced with the serious
decision whether to defer trial indefinitely and (quite often)
to release the defendant back into society. Is it
unconstitutional for Congress to make a uniform rule rather than
to have a determination made on a case-by-case basis?
For two reasons, one practical and the other
precedential, we think the statute is constitutional. On the
practical side, the statute is categorical in determining who
shall be incarcerated, but it is much more flexible and case-
oriented in determining the length of incarceration. In
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addition to the cap on the initial diagnosis limiting it to a
maximum of four months, the statute provides that the period of
incarceration is only for "such a reasonable period of time . .
. as is necessary" to determine whether the defendant will
attain the capacity for trial in the foreseeable future. Here,
the district judge ordered reports at 30-day intervals, and the
record reflects the expectation that the detention will not last
the entire four months.
The second consideration is precedential. Although the
Supreme Court has not squarely decided the issue before us, it
did face in Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715 (1972), the general
issue of committing those found incompetent to stand trial.
While it rejected indefinite commitment, it upheld in principle
commitment for a "reasonable period of time necessary to
determine whether there is a substantial probability that [the
defendant] will attain that capacity in the foreseeable
future." Id. at 738. The present statute is self-evidently
built upon Jackson, Congress having concluded that four months
fell within the concept of a "reasonable period". See S. Rep.
No. 98-225, at 236 (1984), reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3182,
3418.
Since its enactment, two other circuits have ruled that
section 4241(d) conforms to Jackson. See United States v.
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Donofrio, 896 F.2d 1301, 1302-03 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 497
U.S. 1005 (1990); United States v. Shawar, 865 F.2d 856, 863-64
(7th Cir. 1989). Nor do we agree with Filippi that the law has
been changed in any way helpful to him by Kansas v. Hendricks,
521 U.S. 346 (1997). That case upheld a commitment statute
directed to sexual predators based on a finding of dangerousness
coupled with mental illness; but it did not, as Filippi would
have it, hold that dangerousness is always a condition of
commitment.
Affirmed.
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