The trial court abused its discretion in declining to place the defendant in a secured nursing facility under outpatient status. The defendant pled guilty to second degree murder in 1991, and the trial court found that he had not been sane at the time of the killing and ordered that he be committed to Patton State Hospital until the restoration of his sanity. In 2003, various experts unanimously recommended that he be granted outpatient status and placed in a secure nursing facility because he was no longer a danger to the community. Nonetheless, the court below denied defendants application for outpatient status, citing in part the 79-year-old defendants advanced age and poor health. The Court of Appeal found this to be an abuse of discretion because nothing in the record supported these concerns. One justice dissented, finding no abuse of discretion.
Case Summaries