Probate Judge Merlin Fisk—

At Fairfield Hills Hospital, A Judge Sat At The Intersection Of The Law And Mental Health

By Nancy K. Crevier

(This is the ninth in a series of Tales of Fairfield Hills, stories shared by local residents who worked and lived there when the property was a functioning psychiatric institution. Now owned by the Town of Newtown and being re-created, the property’s past has been the subject of stories, some of which may be tainted with truth, some which may be purely fabrication. These tales, though, come from the hearts of those who knew it best.)

Merlin Fisk spent a lot of time up at Fairfield State Hospital (later called Fairfield Hills Hospital) as Judge of Probate for Newtown, between 1979 and 1991. “Probate Court was directly connected with the commitment of people to Fairfield Hills,” said Mr Fisk. So much so, that he had two clerks, one of whom was dedicated just to paperwork involving Fairfield Hills cases.

As Judge of Probate, Mr Fisk oversaw weekly hearings to determine if certain people sent to the court on a physician’s treatment certificate (requiring a 14-day evaluation at Fairfield Hills) would be kept at the hospital.

“The hearings were every Thursday morning at Fairfield Hills in a special room. I would have one attorney representing the patients appearing. He or she would interview these people and form his/her opinion as to whether the patient should stay,” he said. Mr Fisk also appointed two doctors to interview each patient, one of whom was a psychiatrist, and asked that they prepare a written report to be returned to him before the hearings.

Along with the stack of papers from the interviews sitting on his desk, was a recorder, said Mr Fisk. Every hearing was recorded, a requirement of the state.

One at a time, anywhere from four to a dozen patients were brought before him, with the doctors and attorney present. Mr Fisk would explain to the patient why the patient would or would not be staying, based on each of the doctors’ opinions and the opinion of the attorney.

“It took a full morning each week to take care of the current, short-term people,” he said, and he learned early on not to announce his decisions then and there. “Sometimes, finding out he was not going to be released would send a patient into a terrible bit of violence,” he said. One early announcement led to the patient ripping a big fire extinguisher off the wall and throwing it forcefully down the hall.

Another patient, a woman, arrived in court for her hearing with a straw basket filled with all of her belongings. Upon the recommendation of the doctors, he told her she would be kept at the hospital for further treatment.

“She stood up with that basket and made a big overhead swing with it. I put up my hand just in time to hold it off. They hustled her out of the room. One or two like that, and you hold back,” Mr Fisk said.

Instead, if the decision meant the patient would be remanded to the hospital for a further stay, he would tell him or her that he needed to think about it, and would give the decision later in the day. “As soon as the patient was out of the room, though, I would tell the court that the patient was recommitted,” he said.

The Letter Of The Law

Following the letter of the law meant that the judge was required to release a patient if it was not proved that the patient was a danger to him or herself or others. This led to some difficult decisions, at times, said Mr Fisk.

“One interesting case, a man had been at home in his kitchen, when there was a knock on his door. A woman was there, and she accused his son of molesting her daughter. So he shot the woman! Of course, he was arrested, and when it went to trial it was decided he was momentarily insane. So they sent him to Fairfield Hills, not jail. That’s where he was for years,” said Mr Fisk.

A patient hospitalized for a year at Fairfield Hills was entitled to another hearing, if he or she wanted, Mr Fisk explained, and after two years, another hearing was mandatory to determine the patient’s status.

By the time the shooter was brought before Mr Fisk, an earlier Judge of Probate had decided the man might still be a danger to others and had kept him hospitalized. “But the reviews I had before me indicated that this man had unescorted grounds privileges all day long. He reported back to the ward in the evenings and went to his room. He spent weekends at his own home, unescorted, and came back Monday mornings. He didn’t sound very dangerous to me, and I guess the staff at Fairfield Hills must not have thought so, either,” Mr Fisk said. So, he released the man, following the letter of the law.

“That day I heard on the radio that the Judge of Probate in Newtown, Merlin Fisk, had just released a murderer into the community. That created a commotion,” he said.

The man was picked up and rearrested practically right away, sent back to the hospital, and once again came before Mr Fisk. “I had only the same evidence before me. I told the court that this is a strange case, but I am required by law to go by what I see and hear, and am given as evidence. I saw nothing that this man was a danger to himself or others, so I was required to release him. Of course, he was rearrested yet again,” Mr Fisk said.

This time, the man did not return to Fairfield Hills, and to this day, Mr Fisk has no idea what became of the man. “Fairfield Hills had paid no attention to the fact he had killed someone. They treated him like he was perfectly harmless, so I had no choice,” he said, sticking by his decision of more than 30 years before.

In another case, he used his recording of the proceedings to later teach incoming judges that there are instances when attorney/client privilege does not hold. The case involved a man hospitalized for attempted suicide. “The doctors interviewed him and he seemed in good shape. I was just about to release him when his attorney spoke up. He said, ‘This is one instance I could not make up my mind what to do. What a patient tells me is privileged. However, I believe that what my client has told me is going to result in a crime.’”

At the time, suicide was against the law in Connecticut. The patient had confided to the lawyer that if released, he would once again attempt to kill himself. The man was committed to the hospital for treatment.

Patients at Fairfield Hills on a 14-day certificate had a right to a probable cause hearing before that time was up. “I appointed an attorney, and then the patient, attorney and a member of the hospital staff would appear before me. The probable cause hearings would sometimes take place on the ward, so I had keys to all of the wards,” said Mr Fisk. “As soon as I would go on the ward, the patients would know me and surround me and ask, ‘Judge, when are you going to let me out of here?’ They were all very friendly, though, and I was never afraid,” he said.

Difficult Adolescent Cases

“I hated getting cases in the adolescent unit,” Mr Fisk said. “They were always difficult to decide. Kids will do things on impulse to harm themselves. They just don’t know better,” he said. A parent or guardian was required to attend hearings with an adolescent patient, he said, and Mr Fisk took those opinions very seriously in making his decisions. “If drugs or alcohol were involved, that was not my jurisdiction. The criteria for my court remained the same for adults and adolescents: they only stayed [in the hospital] if they were a danger to themselves or others,” he said.

Along with adolescent cases, Mr Fisk dreaded the calls in the middle of the night from distraught parents whose child was missing and possible suicidal. “I would go to the police station and swear out a warrant. They would find the child and bring him or her back to the station, and I would interview the individual. Almost always,” he said, “I would have the child taken to the hospital for evaluation.”

There were times when it was hard to tell a patient he or she would not be released, admitted Mr Fisk. “I had one woman who was on a merry-go-round of in and out at Fairfield Hills. She was fine if she stayed on her medications, but if she went off, she went crazy. Then she would be back at a hearing with me again. She was a regular,” said Mr Fisk.

“I was quite well accepted at Fairfield Hills,” Mr Fisk said, “and my interactions with the patients was generally good.”

The closing of the institution, four years after he finished his service as a Judge of Probate, was a terrible thing, said Mr Fisk. “What was wrong with how they closed it, was that they did not prepare for any aftercare for the patients. There were not enough group homes set up, and not enough people to staff them to make sure that patients there took their medications and were otherwise cared for. A lot of patients were transferred to Middletown, and that,” he said, “was just not good.”