Prior to the mid-19th century little distinction was drawn in New York between the criminally insane and the non-criminal element suffering from mental illness. Both were placed at the New York State Lunatic Asylum in Utica. With the advent of enlightened psychopathology it became apparent the integration of these two distinct populations, the civilly and criminally committed, presented unjust dangers to the former. In 1855 the New York Legislature segregated the criminally insane under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections (the non-criminal being assigned to the Department of Mental Hygiene), and in 1859 the first State Lunatic Asylum for Insane Convicts was opened on the grounds of Auburn Prison. As the Auburn asylum eventually became overcrowded, legislative appropriation was made for a larger facility in Beacon. A 900 acre property was purchased and in 1892 a 450 bed institution at Matteawan opened near the Fishkill Mountains. It stated purpose was to provide internment 'for the isolation of dangerous and vicious patients, giving priority to the problems of security and custody with little or no recognition to the need for care'. The emphasis on confinement over treatment inevitably led to abuse by unqualified and unlicensed staff - sadistic beatings and improper medication were commonly alleged. Until the 1960's Matteawan operated under a regulatory policy that permitted the superintendent to arbitrarily decide a patient's fate. With no constitutional safeguards of due process, inmates often remained in the wards for years without effective therapeutics and therefore little to no chance of recovery or release. In 1965, prior to the introduction of reform measures, 703 Matteawan patients had been confined there for at least ten years, 306 for 20, 119 for 30, 29 for 40, four for 50 and one for 64 years.
When George was brought to its tuberculosis ward in the spring of 1957 it appeared unlikely that he would long survive. He had lost 20 pounds and remained confined to bed, suffering from recurrent fevers and night sweats. As the months passed, George's physical condition gradually began to stabilize and by December 1958 even showed signs of improvement. The New York County D.A.'s office repeatedly inquired if the medical condition of their indicted defendant permitted his standing trial, and they were repeatedly informed that George was still under treatment. As he began his slow convalescence the Workmen's Compensation Board in Albany rejected the bid to reopen his claim, stating there was no proof of mental incompetency at the time of the 1931 Hell Gate accident and therefore no excuse for the late filing of claim. An appeal of the decision was filed with the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court. On December 4, 1958 the court once again firmly and irrevocably denied George's claim. His decades long crusade had ended in defeat.
By 1961 his tuberculosis had gone into remission and George was transferred to the psychiatric ward of the hospital. There he was considered, by most accounts, to be a model inmate who engaged in solitary pursuits (mostly reading books and listening to radio programs) and troubled neither the staff nor his fellow patients. George received no medication or therapy related to his mental illness.
While on the tuberculosis ward George had witnessed an inmate named Paul Simulick being repeatedly beaten by two night shift guards, and he consequently developed a passionate resentment to the staff and the institution itself. He later wrote - "They used to take him out around midnight and beat him up. They would do this almost every night. It terrorized the rest of the patients. Six months after I got off [the tuberculosis ward], Paul died. He just couldn't take it anymore".
By 1962 George had started a new letter writing campaign protesting the horrid conditions at Matteawan and the ill treatment of its patients. He wrote to Judge Leibowitz that his attorneys Murray and Spellman bungled his case and stole his money. He wrote to Manhattan D.A. Frank Hogan that he either be put on trial or that all charges against him be dropped. For the next ten years George educated himself on the complicated legal questions regarding the confinement of the criminally insane and the constitutional issues of his case. In January 1964 he brought a petition to the Supreme Court of New York in Dutchess County for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming his civil rights had been violated by his imprisonment at Matteawan and requested he be discharged from the facility in order to stand trial on the criminal charges pending against him. A hearing was held at Matteawan a month later, but based on the statement of a staff psychiatrist that George remained in a mentally impaired condition the petition was summarily dismissed. He then filed an appeal of the dismissal to the Appellate Division stating he had been denied a true hearing since he was not permitted to cross examine the doctor. Two years later a five judge panel unanimously agreed, reversing the dismissal and sending the matter back to the county court. On December 15, 1966 George had his hearing in a Poughkeepsie NY courtroom. Matteawan psychiatrists testified there had been no perceptible psychological improvement since his commitment in 1957. Two months later, George's petition was again dismissed.
Beginning in the mid 1960's a series of court decisions (including those of the United States Supreme Court) recognized the constitutional rights of the criminally accused (e.g. Miranda) including those committed to state mental institutions. With regard to Matteawan and other facilities under the control of the NY Department of Corrections it established that the criminally insane subjected to confinement in 'mental prisons' were entitled to the same procedural rights and safeguards as those provided to the civilly committed non-criminals. In November 1970 George filed a petition with the Supreme Court of New York in Manhattan against Hogan seeking a dismissal of the 1957 indictment. The D.A.'s office counter filed claiming it was George's mental incompetence to stand trial that prevented them from proceeding on the indictment, and the court denied his petition. He then brought the matter to the Appellate Division, which refused to hear it.
In 1971 a class action suit filed with the Federal District Court of the Southern District of New York in New York City by the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the New York State statues allowing George and other inmates to be confined at the whim of an institution without the right of a jury trial to determine whether or not they were in fact dangerous amounted to a violation of the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution. On April 14, 1972 a three judge panel of the federal court ruled in favor of George and the other class action plaintiffs. The Matteawan practice of perpetually retaining its inmates without first obtaining a jury finding on their actual menace had come to an end. On June 19 George appeared in a closed Brooklyn courtroom represented by Irving Engel, who argued cogently against the institution's claim that his client was a dangerously incapacitated person. But Beatrice Judge, the jurist in the hearing, found the testimony of Matteawan psychiatrists to be overwhelmingly persuasive and recommitted George to the custody of the Department of Correction (had she ruled otherwise he would have been transferred to a civil institution under the auspices of the Department of Mental Hygiene). Two months later Engel filed a motion with the court seeking the jury trial George was entitled to under the federal court decision. On January 25, 1973 he was transported to the Kings County Hospital for further proceedings.
On May 29, 1973 the United States Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the decision of the Federal District Court of the Southern District of New York in favor of George and his fellow patients. Recognizing the reality that George would not be declared dangerous by any jury, the Kings County D.A. agreed to the defendant being moved to Creedmore State Hospital in Queens Village NY, a civil facility.
In 1972 the New York State Legislature enacted a provision in the penal statues that no untried criminally insane person could be held in an institution for a period exceeding two thirds of the maximum penalty for the highest class felony charged in the original indictment. In George's case this was attempted murder in the first degree, which carried a maximum term of 25 years. This was reduced to 16 years and eight months, a sentence that expired on September 21, 1973. On December 10 George stood before a New York judge and promised he would make no more units. Seven days later, wearing a neatly buttoned double breasted suit, he boarded a Greyhound Bus to Waterbury and went home to care for his surviving sister Mae, living out his remaining days there.
George's second crusade was successful, reaching fruition in 1976 when the New York State Legislature restructured the delivery of mental health services to the criminally insane and closed Matteawan State Hospital the following year.
Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane
Were George and Larry here acquainted?
Abbie Hoffman, the 1960's counterculture hero (one of the Chicago Seven defendants) and founder of the Youth International Party (the Yippies) began adopting the name George Metesky for his revolutionary theatrics. In August 1967 he and his accomplices, when arrested during a demonstration at the New York Stock Exchange, each identified himself by that name to the baffled police. He authored a handbook titled Fuck The System which was published under the pseudonym. Hoffman made several attempts to contact him at Matteawan, but George was not interested and rebuffed all efforts of communication by the man.