David Belinky

David Belinky is the assistant attorney general who represented the State of Ohio in proceedings over Billy Milligan’s hospitalization. He sought Milligan’s transfer from Athens to Lima State Hospital after an escape attempt and later argued that the court should commit him there. His appearances bring a sustained legal question into focus: whether the state’s priority should be secure custody or treatment suited to Milligan’s diagnosed condition.

Role in the Transfer Proceedings

The state’s move toward transferring Milligan followed an escape attempt from the Athens Mental Health Center. At the next hearing, Belinky appeared for the state after filing a motion to transfer Milligan to Lima State Hospital. Milligan’s lawyer, Alan Goldsberry, asked Judge Roger J. Jones for time to speak with his client and argued that Milligan should be told about the motion and advised of his right to request an immediate hearing. The judge disagreed, leaving the transfer question to proceed without the consultation Goldsberry had sought.

Belinky called Russell Cremeans, the Athens facility’s chief of Security and Safety, as the state’s only witness. He questioned Cremeans about reported assaults and whether the hospital could contain Milligan if he intended to leave. Cremeans said he had serious reservations about the institution’s ability to hold him. Belinky then asked whether Cremeans had firsthand knowledge of the escape attempt. Cremeans described Milligan and fellow patient Gus Holston breaking the lock on a fire-escape door with a chair, going down the fire escape, and reaching a parking lot. Milligan entered a vehicle that had been brought back after an earlier unauthorized absence; before he could get inside, staff intervened. Milligan and Holston ran over a hill, and three men subdued Milligan and returned him to Ward 5. After hearing this account, Judge Jones granted the state’s transfer motion.

The Dispute Over Returning to Athens

A week later, at the Allen County Courthouse, Belinky again represented the state, this time opposing Goldsberry’s motion to return Milligan to Athens. The writer and Goldsberry were allowed to sit with Milligan at the table, opposite Belinky and the state’s witness, Lewis Lindner. The hearing did not resolve the dispute through new testimony: the referee ruled that Judge Jones had already decided Lima was the appropriate place for hospitalization, and that Milligan would have an opportunity to present evidence at his ninety-day review. On that legal basis, the request to return him to Athens was treated as moot.

The episode placed Belinky on the side of maintaining the transfer while Milligan, speaking as the Teacher, asked the court to let him resume treatment. He emphasized that his doctors had told him he needed to be able to trust his physician and treatment team. The contrast was not simply between two hospitals: the court’s process had determined where Milligan would remain before the promised review could weigh his current condition and care.

Arguments at the Commitment Hearing

At a later hearing, Belinky framed the state’s burden narrowly. In closing, he argued that the state needed to prove Milligan was mentally ill and subject to hospitalization, but did not have to prove the diagnosis itself. He relied on the testimony of Dr. David Caul and Dr. Milkie: Caul had testified that Milligan remained mentally ill, while Milkie considered Lima the least restrictive setting in which to treat him. Belinky urged the court to commit Milligan to Lima.

Steve Thompson, arguing for Milligan, answered that the psychiatric experts supported both the multiple-personality diagnosis and Athens as the more appropriate place for treatment. He challenged the weight of Milkie’s assessment, pointing out that Milligan had been transferred to Lima and examined there without, according to the defense, reference to his prior medical history or treatment. The competing submissions thus separated two questions Belinky’s argument kept distinct: whether Milligan met the legal standard for hospitalization, and which institution was suitable for his care.

Court Order and Significance

On December 10, 1979, Judge David R. Kinworthy found that Milligan had a substantial disorder affecting thought, mood, perception, orientation, and memory, impairing his judgment, behavior, and ability to recognize reality. The court identified his condition as multiple personality and found grounds for hospitalization, citing threats of suicide, recent violent behavior, and a grave and imminent risk to the rights of himself and others. It also found that he required a maximum-security facility.

The order committed Milligan to Lima State Hospital, but it expressly required that his treatment be consistent with the multiple-personality diagnosis. That qualification matters to the outcome of the argument Belinky had advanced: the court accepted hospitalization at Lima and the state’s security case, while also making the diagnosis a stated basis for the treatment that was to follow. Belinky’s role in the proceedings is therefore defined by advocacy for transfer and continued secure commitment, within a case where the legal classification of Milligan and the appropriate form of treatment remained closely linked.