Insane Then, Doesn't Mean Insane Now

Gerald Bolton, 35, has been in and out of insane asylums for 19 years. His hang-up is automobiles, and it has brought him a lot of trouble. In fact, in the gentle word of a psychiatrist, he "eloped" from one Washington, D.C., hospital at least three times to be with cars -- cars that each time he stole and drove all over the country. In 1965, he was picked up for stealing yet another car. Gerald entered an insanity defense and was acquitted. Immediately after ward he was sent to a hospital for the in sane -- as is anyone, in most U.S. courts, who successfully pleads insanity.

But Gerald filed a habeas corpus petition, arguing that simply because he had agreed he was insane when he stole the car did not mean that he was insane now. Persons who are civilly committed are entitled to a formal commitment hearing, and, he argued, he should not be treated any differently. The U.S.

Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has just agreed.

The insanity plea, said the court, "is neither an express nor an implied ad mission of present illness, and acquittal rests only on a reasonable doubt of sani ty at the time of the offense. It is true that persons acquitted by reason of in sanity have committed criminal acts and that this fact may tend to show that they meet the requirements for commitment, namely illness and dangerousness. But it does not justify total abandonment of the procedures used in civil commitment proceedings to determine whether these same requirements have been satisfied."

The court did rule that any such ac quitted defendants could be kept in custody until the hearing, since there is sufficient reason to suspect that they might be a danger to the community.

And it added that "these modifications in no way alter the rule which the pub lic safety has always required, that per sons who are dangerous due to mental illness be confined." Despite the dis claimer, the ruling did raise the specter of a murderer found not guilty by rea son of insanity and later judged not insane enough for confinement.

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