James Powell v. State of Florida

CHARLES CLARK, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal from the grant of a writ of habeas corpus, the state of Florida attacks the district court’s holding that the petitioner’s equal protection rights were violated since he, a person acquitted of a crime by reason of insanity, was not afforded the same procedural protections before commitment to a state mental hospital that apply in other involuntary civil commitment cases. We vacate, holding that although a state must afford insanity acquitees substantially the same protections that it gives persons committed under the ordinary civil commitment…