Nathaniel L. Goldstein, Attorney-General (
Louis E. Cooper of counsel), for Department of Mental Hygiene of the State of New York appearing specially.
Denis M. Hurley, Corporation Counsel (
Rose Schneph of counsel), amicus curiæ.
other court of record in the judicial district where the institution is located. For, not only has the Supreme Court or other court of record exclusive jurisdiction to handle such a proceeding as a habeas corpus writ but there should also be taken into account the inconvenience of the attendance of the director and other medical witnesses at a remote court. Except Willowbrook State School, all the institutions for mental defectives designated in
section 120 of the Mental Hygiene Law are in the Third or Fourth Judicial District; and the five counties of the city of New York covered by the Domestic Relations Court are within the First or Second Judicial District. Moreover, while the power to certify a child for sixty days' provisional placement in a State school for mental defectives is a useful adjunct to the Children's Court jurisdiction over delinquent and neglected children, disposition of the question whether a patient's mental condition has improved to a degree justifying his or her return to the community, often after the sixteenth birthday anniversary, is not an essential function of a Children's Court as presently underimplemented. Analogous considerations of legislative policy underly the Attorney-General's May 7, 1945, ruling that subdivision 1 of
section 86 of the Domestic Relations Court Act also does not operate to vest this court with jurisdiction to order the release of a child which it has committed to the New York State Training School for Boys or to the New York State Training School for Girls but that the Legislature has placed that power instead in the New York State Department of Social Welfare. "
Section 430 of the Social Welfare Law provides in part: * * *
"`6. Any child may be paroled or discharged at any time after commitment
in accordance with rules of the board.
"`7. Every child legally committed to any such school shall continue to be a ward of such school until he or she becomes of the age of twenty-one years, notwithstanding his or her parole or discharge therefrom, and
notwithstanding the provisions of any other act, whether general or special. (Emphasis supplied)
"The provisions of Â
§ 86 of the Domestic Relations Court Act are appropriate to review the character of the care being given to a child in any of the many private institutions to which the court has power to commit a child. I find no indication that the Legislature intended to permit a local court to make a similar inquiry into the manner of conducting a State institution, or to direct the State Training School `to make such other arrangements for the child's care and welfare as the facts of the case
may require.' The Legislature has provided adequate safeguards to assure the proper conduct and supervision of the State Training School (see Social Welfare Law §§ 412, 413, 416, 429)." (1945 Atty.-Gen., 263-264.)
Notice of today's decision shall be given pursuant to the subjoined direction. [*] The opinion as filed sets forth the true name of the child but as here published substitutes a fictitious name (cf. N. Y. City Dom. Rel. Ct. Act, § 52, L. 1933, ch. 482).