People v. Saville

Opinion

ROTH, P. J.

Respondent was committed to Atascadero State Hospital in 1973 pursuant to Penal Code section 1026 after having been found not guilty by

[972]

reason of insanity of assault with a deadly weapon (Pen. Code, § 245, subd. (a)) and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit murder (Pen. Code, § 217). His maximum term of commitment was set at 2,190 days, a period he maintained expired on October 9, 1981.

On October 14, 1981, a petition for extended commitment was filed by the District Attorney of Los Angeles County pursuant to Penal Code section 1026.5. Asserting lack of jurisdiction based on the termination of his commitment, respondent sought and obtained a writ of habeas corpus dismissing the petition. This appeal followed. We affirm.

During the course of commitment, respondent was at various times granted outpatient status, which was in turn periodically curtailed on account of respondent’s unacceptable behaviour.

1

On some of these occasions of curtailment, respondent, rather than being returned to Atascadero, was hospitalized in other institutions under provisions of Welfare and Institutions Code sections 5150 and 5250, part of the so-called Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS) (see fn. 1).

At the hearing on the petition for writ of habeas corpus, it was shown that respondent was entitled without dispute

2

to credit for 2,111 days against his maximum commitment term of 2,190 days. Contested on the issue of credit, on the other hand, were 104 days spent by respondent in institutions other than Atascadero under the circumstances described, the contention of appellant in this regard being that, whereas respondent not only could have been but in fact was hospitalized through appropriate application of the provisions of LPS rather than by virtue of any requirement of the Penal Code, credit against the commitment term was improper.

The trial court, to the contrary, concluded respondent was entitled to credit for 84 of the 104 days, for a total confinement attributable to the commitment term of 2,195 days, on the rationale that even though respondent had been hospitalized under LPS on the occasions referred to, those commitments were nevertheless, upon the basis of substantial evidence establishing the fact, the result of action initiated by Atascadero State Hospital or by respondent’s outpatient supervisor, the Los Angeles County Health Department, or his outpatient provider, the Center for Legal Psychiatry.