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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF ALASKA 

STANLY PIENIAZEK, 

Appellant, 

v. 

STATE OF ALASKA, 

Appellee. 

Court of Appeals No. A-11866 

Trial Court No. 4FA-12-1496 CR 

O P I N I O N 

No. 2543 — February 24, 2017 

Appeal from the Superior Court, Fourth Judicial District, 

Fairbanks, Michael P. McConahy, Judge. 

Appearances: Kelly R. Taylor, Assistant Public Defender, and 

Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. 

Nancy R. Simel, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal 

Appeals, Anchorage, and Craig W. Richards, Attorney General, 

Juneau, for the Appellee. 

Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Suddock, 

Superior Court Judge. * 

Judge ALLARD. 

Stanly Pieniazek was found competent to stand trial following a 

competency hearing before Fairbanks Superior Court Judge Michael P. McConahy. A 

* Sitting by assignment made pursuant to Article IV, Section 16 of the Alaska 

Constitution and Administrative Rule 24(d). 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

jury later found Pieniazek guilty of two counts of third-degree assault1 for shooting a gun 

at two state troopers after they responded to a report of a disturbance at Pieniazek’s 

property in Fairbanks. 

On appeal, Pieniazek argues that the superior court erred in determining 

that he was competent to stand trial. For the reasons explained here, we agree with 

Pieniazek that the superior court misapplied the factors listed in AS 12.47.100(e) and 

failed to conduct an independent and contemporaneous assessment of Pieniazek’s 

competency. Accordingly, we remand Pieniazek’s case to the superior court for 

reconsideration and, if feasible, a retrospective determination of his competency to stand 

trial. 

Background facts 

Pieniazek, a Polish immigrant with limited English proficiency, is eighty 

years old. The events that gave rise to this case took place in May 2012, when Pieniazek 

was seventy-five years old. At the time of the shooting, Pieniazek was living in squalor 

at his property in Fairbanks in a collection of structures connected by self-constructed 

“tunnels” that witnesses described as dilapidated and unsanitary. Although Pieniazek 

was appointed a public guardian2 two years prior, due to his behavior during a separate 

criminal case, Pieniazek rebuffed his guardian’s attempts to place him in assisted living, 

and he twice left the facility in which he was placed. The record before the trial court 

indicated that Pieniazek was employed from 1969 to approximately 1991, when he 

retired. The record also indicated that although Pieniazek possessed a driver’s license 

as late as 2011, he was last observed driving in February 2010. 

1 AS 11.41.220.
 

2 AS 13.26.370.
 

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Prior to trial,Pieniazek’sattorneyfiledamotion for ajudicial determination 

of competency. Pieniazek was then evaluated twice: first by clinical psychologist Dr. 

Siegfried Fink, who concluded that Pieniazek had dementia and was incompetent to 

stand trial; and later by state forensic psychologist Dr. Lois Michaud, who rejected 

Fink’s diagnosis of dementia and instead concluded that Pieniazek was malingering, 

based on his refusal to communicate with her. 

Fairbanks Superior Court Judge Michael McConahy subsequently held a 

hearing in May 2013 at which Dr. Fink and Dr. Michaud elaborated on their respective 

diagnoses. In addition, threeother witnesses testified: Ruth Retynski, Pieniazek’s public 

guardian, as well as Fairbanks Correctional Center (FCC) officers Joanne Murrell and 

Jerry Watson. Murrell and Watson had both dealt extensively with Pieniazek while he 

was in custody awaiting trial in this case. In relevant part, Retynski, Murrell, and 

Watson each described a number of Pieniazek’s strange behaviors. 

Retynski testified that she struggled to find an assisted living facility for 

Pieniazek, partly because she could not determine whether his behavior was due to 

mental illness or dementia. But Retynski also testified that Pieniazek was manipulative, 

and that there were times during her conversations with Pieniazek that she felt he was 

pretending not to understand her when she “didn’t give him exactly what he wanted.” 

TheFCCcorrectionsofficerstestifiedthatPieniazek’s mental conditionwas 

extremely poor during his incarceration: Pieniazek hoarded and atespoiled food, refused 

to shower unless “tricked” into doing so, struggled to complete all but the most simple 

tasks, generally did not communicate with staff or other inmates, and was kept in 

administrative segregation for the sake of both his and others’ safety. Officer Murrell 

testified that Pieniazek had “moments where he knows what he’s talking about ... [and] 

moments where he’s just babbling.” She also testified that Pieniazek would sometimes 

“in the middle of the night ... pack up all his stuff, fold everything up, organize 

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everything, and just bang on the door and [say] open the door, I’m ready to go home.” 

Dr. Fink also noted in his report that the FCC staff members he interviewed “observed 

a significant decline in [Pieniazek’s] level of functioning especially in the last year.” 

The trial judge found Pieniazek competent to stand trial, crediting 

Retynski’s and Dr. Michaud’s testimony that Pieniazek was sometimes 

“communicative.” The trial judge also noted that AS 12.47.100(e) directs a court 

determining a defendant’s competency to take into account “whether the person has 

obtained a driver’s license, is able to maintain employment, or is competent to testify as 

a witness under the Alaska Rules of Evidence.” The trial judge concluded that these 

conditions had been met in Pieniazek’s case because Pieniazek was “able to maintain 

employment since he got [to the United States] until his retirement [in 1991]” and that, 

although Pieniazek did not have a current driver’s license, he had a “currently registered 

vehicle on his property” in 2011 and “gets around.” 

The trial judge also found it significant that Pieniazek had testified briefly 

in his own defense in a bench trial for criminal trespass before Fairbanks Superior Court 

Judge Jane Kauvar that took place two years earlier, in February 2012. JudgeMcConahy 

assumed that Judge Kauvar had found Pieniazek competent to testify at that trial. 

However, the record indicates that this assumption was incorrect. There 

were no competency proceedings prior to the 2012 criminal trespass trial, and Judge 

Kauvar made no explicit finding that Pieniazek was competent to testify. The record also 

indicates that, although Judge Kauvar may have permitted Pieniazek to testify, 

Pieniazek’s behavior in court was sufficiently unusual that Judge Kauvar herself sought 

to appoint Retynski as Pieniazek’s legal guardian. A review of Pieniazek’s trial 

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testimony in that prior case also reveals that his testimony was extremely brief and 

largely incoherent, and that Pieniazek appeared confused by the proceedings.3 

Pieniazek also testified briefly in the current case. In the brief time he was 

on the stand, he answered his attorney’s initial questions in Polish and then answered his 

attorney’s later questions with “I don’t know” and silence. 

Alaska law regarding competency determinations 

Under Alaska law, a criminal defendant is incompetent to stand trial if, “as 

a result of a mental disease or defect ... the defendant is unable to understand the 

proceedings against the defendant or assist in the defendant’s own defense.”4 Alaska 

Statute 12.47.130(5) defines “mental disease or defect” as “a disorder of thought or 

mood that substantially impairs judgment, behavior, capacity to recognize reality, or 

ability to cope with the ordinary demands of life.” The statutory definition further 

clarifies that “mental disease or defect” also includes “intellectual and developmental 

3 At the 2012 criminal trespass trial, Pieniazek stated, through a translator, that he was 

born in Poland in 1936, but that he could not remember when he moved to the United States, 

or when he moved to Fairbanks. After many questions went unanswered, Pieniazek could 

not answer what his house looked like. When his counsel asked him to tell the court what 

happened, Pieniazek replied “What’s supposed to happen?” “I don’t know,” and “I would 

like to know when I can leave from here.” The court attempted to ask him if he wanted to 

say anything about what happened and, after the translator asked more questions to 

understand his answers, he replied “When I’m going to go.” 

4 AS 12.47.100(a); see also AS 12.47.130(4) (“‘[I]ncompetent’ means a defendant is 

unable to understand the proceedings against the defendant or to assist in the defendant’s 

own defense.”). 

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disabilities that result in significantly below average general intellectual functioning that 

impairs a person’s ability to adapt to or cope with the ordinary demands of life.”5 

A defendant who is incompetent may not be tried, convicted, or sentenced 

so long as his incompetency exists.6 The conviction of a defendant who is incompetent 

violates due process of law.7 

Wehavepreviously emphasized that,“[b]ecause theintegrity ofthejudicial 

proceeding is at stake when the competency of a criminal defendant is in question, a trial 

court has a duty to order a competency evaluation whenever there is good cause to 

believe the defendant may be incompetent to stand trial.”8 Moreover, “because a 

defendant’s mental state may deteriorate under the pressures of incarceration or trial, a 

trial court must be responsive to competency concerns throughout the criminal 

proceeding.”9 

The standard for determining lack of competency, although originally 

formulated in judicial decisions, is now codified in AS 12.47.100. This statute provides 

that “[a] defendant is presumed to be competent” and that “[t]he party raising the issue 

of competency bears the burden of proving the defendant is incompetent by a 

5 AS 12.47.130(5). 

6 AS 12.47.100(a). 

7 Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162, 172 (1975); Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 378 

(1966); Diggs v. State, 274 P.3d 504, 505 (Alaska App. 2012). 

8 Gamble v. State, 334 P.3d 714, 717 (Alaska App. 2014) (citing Leonard v. State, 658 

P.2d 798, 799 (Alaska App. 1983)). 

9 Gamble, 334 P.3d at 717 (citing Smiloff v. State, 579 P.2d 28, 36 (Alaska 1978); 

AS 12.47.100(b)). 

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preponderance of the evidence.”10 When the court raises the issue of competency, the 

burden of proving the defendant is incompetent “shall be on the party who elects to 

advocate for a finding of incompetency.”11 

Alaska Statute 12.47.100(e)-(g) directs the trial court to consider a variety 

of factors in assessing a defendant’s competency to stand trial.12 Subsection (e) provides 

a list of factors that the court is required to consider in determining “whether a person 

has sufficient intellectual functioning to cope with the ordinary demands of life.” These 

factors are: 

whether the person has obtained a driver’s license, is able to 

maintain employment, or is competent to testify as a witness 

under the Alaska Rules of Evidence.13 

Subsection (f) provides a list of non-exhaustive factors that the court is 

required to consider in determining “if the defendant is able to understand the 

proceedings against the defendant.” These factors include: 

whether the defendant understands that the defendant has 

been charged with a criminal offense and that penalties can 

beimposed;whetherthedefendant understands what criminal 

conduct is being alleged; whether the defendant understands 

10 AS 12.47.100(c). 

11 Id. 

12 These subsections were added to the competency statute in 1996. SLA 1996, ch. 62, 

§1. 

13 AS 12.47.100(e); see also AS 12.47.130(5) (“‘[M]ental disease or defect’ means a 

disorder of thought or mood that substantially impairs judgment, behavior, capacity to 

recognize reality, or ability to cope with the ordinary demands of life; ‘mental disease or 

defect’ also includes intellectual and developmental disabilities that result in significantly 

below average general intellectual functioning that impairs a person’s ability to adapt to or 

cope with the ordinary demands of life.”). 

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the roles of the judge, jury, prosecutor, and defense counsel; 

whether the defendant understands that the defendant will be 

expected to tell defense counsel the circumstances, to the best 

of the defendant’s ability, surrounding the defendant's 

activities at the time of the alleged criminal conduct; and 

whether the defendant can distinguish between a guilty and 

not guilty plea.14 

Lastly,subsection (g)provides alistofnon-exhaustivefactorsthatthecourt 

is required to consider in determining if the defendant is “unable to assist in the 

defendant’s own defense.” These factors include: 

whether the defendant’s mental disease or defect affects the 

defendant’s ability to recall and relate facts pertaining to the 

defendant’s actions at times relevant to the charges and 

whether the defendant can respond coherently to counsel’s 

questions.15 

Subsection (g) also provides: 

A defendant is able to assist in the defense even though the 

defendant’s memory may be impaired, the defendant refuses 

to accept a course of action that counsel or the court believes 

is in the defendant’s best interest, or the defendant is unable 

to suggest aparticular strategy or to choose among alternative 

defenses.16 

14 AS 12.47.100(f); see also AS 12.47.130(6) (“‘[U]nderstand the proceedings against 

the defendant’ means that the defendant’s elementary mental process is such that the 

defendant has a reasonably rational comprehension of the proceedings.”). 

15 AS 12.47.100(g); see also AS 12.47.130(2) (“‘[A]ssist in the defendant’s own 

defense’ means to consult with a lawyer while exercising a reasonable degree of rational 

functioning.”). 

16 AS 12.47.100(g). 

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Why we remand Pieniazek’s case for reconsideration 

As explained above, AS 12.47.100(e)-(g) directs a trial court to consider 

a variety of factors in determining whether a defendant is competent to stand trial. 

In this case, however, the trial court focused its analysis almost exclusively 

on the factors listed in AS 12.47.100(e) and appeared to largely ignore the requirements 

of subsections (f) and (g). Although the court briefly mentioned the requirements of (f) 

and (g), it did not appear to undergo any independent analysis of these factors; instead 

the court primarily deferred to Dr. Michaud’s conclusions without much explanation for 

this deference.17 

Moreover, when the court evaluated the factors listed in AS 12.47.100(e), 

it did not evaluate these factors in terms of Pieniazek’s current ability to function and 

cope with the ordinary demands of life. Instead, it evaluated these factors exclusively 

in terms of Pieniazek’s ability to function in the past — including, at times, the distant 

past. For example, the trial court noted that “I don’t think anybody is saying that 

[Pieniazek] currently has an operator license,” but the trial court nevertheless found it 

significant that “it seems clear that he’s driven in the past, and [] had a — in 2011 at 

least, a currently registered vehicle.” The trial court also found it significant that 

Pieniazek “maintain[ed] employment since he got here until his retirement” even though 

Pieniazek’s retirement was in 1991 — more than twenty years before the 2013 

competency hearing. Lastly, the trial court found it significant that Pieniazek had 

testified on his own behalf in a prior criminal trial that took place approximately two 

years earlier. But, as already noted, the prior trial had not included a competency 

17 See Adams v. State, 829 P.2d 1201, 1207-08 (Alaska App. 1992) (Bryner, C.J., 

concurring) (noting that the determination of competency is ultimately a legal matter, not a 

medical matter, and the superior court’s deference to psychologist’s opinion amounted to a 

failure to exercise judicial discretion and constituted an independent ground for reversal). 

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evaluation. Moreover, Pieniazek’s testimony at that prior trial was largely incoherent, 

and his behavior ultimately resulted in the court appointing him a public guardian. 

Taken together, the trial court’s remarks indicate that the court misapplied 

thefactors under AS12.47.100(e) and failed to adequately investigate whether Pieniazek 

was competent at the time of trial, rather than at some point in the past. The record also 

indicates that the court failed to properly document its consideration of the relevant 

factors under AS 12.47.100(f)-(g). 

As the Alaska Supreme Court has previously cautioned, competency is not 

a static concept, and the trial court’s duty to determine competency is “not one that can 

be once determined and then ignored.”18 The need to focus on the defendant’s current 

level of functioning was particularly acute in this case, given that there had been a 

diagnosis of progressive dementia from one expert and witness testimony that 

Pieniazek’s functioning had significantly deteriorated over the last year. But in making 

its competency finding, the trial court relied primarily on evidence that was too old to be 

of direct relevance to a contemporaneous assessment of Pieniazek’s competency. The 

trial court also relied on a purported finding of competency from another judge that had 

not actually occurred. Because of these errors, we conclude that a remand to the superior 

court for reconsideration of Pieniazek’s competency at the time of trial is required. 

We recognizethat retrospective competency hearings aredisfavored under 

the law, largely because of the inherent difficulties in making such determinations 

retrospectively.19 But we believe that this case presents different circumstances than the 

18 See Smiloff v. State, 579 P.2d 28, 33-36 (Alaska 1978); accord Gamble v. State, 334 

P.3d 714, 717 (Alaska App. 2014). 

19 See Leonard v. State, 658 P.2d 798, 800 (Alaska App. 1983) (holding that the only 

remedy for erroneous denial of competency evaluation is reversal of conviction because of 

(continued...) 

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typical case where a trial court fails to hold a competency hearing or fails to follow the 

procedural rules for such a hearing.20 Here, unlike in those cases, a full competency 

hearing was held, and there was a significant amount of testimony presented from 

experts and other people with recent interactions with Pieniazek. It therefore may be 

possible, unlike in most cases, for the superior court to reach a retrospective 

determination of Pieniazek’s then-competency to stand trial based on the current 

record.21 However, if the superior court determines that the record is inadequate for a 

retrospective determination of competency, then the only proper remedy is a new trial 

preceded by a new competency determination. 

19 (...continued) 

difficulties associated with retrospective competency determinations); see also Pate v. 

Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 386-87 (1966) (noting that proper remedy for error in competency 

determination was a new trial preceded by a new competency determination due to the 

difficulty of retroactively determining an accused’s competence to stand trial); Dusky v. 

United States, 362 U.S. 402, 403 (1960) (per curiam) (concluding that the only way to 

effectively correct an erroneous determination of competency to stand trial is to reverse the 

conviction and remand to the district court for a hearing as to competency and for a new trial 

if the accused should be found competent). 

20 See, e.g., Leonard, 658 P.2d at 800 (court failed to hold a competency hearing). 

21 See, e.g., Odle v. Woodford, 238 F.3d 1084, 1089 (9th Cir. 2001) (holding that 

retrospective competency hearings are permissible “when the record contains sufficient 

information upon which to base a reasonable psychiatric judgment” of the defendant’s 

competence); United States v. Arenburg, 605 F.3d 164, 171 (2nd Cir. 2010) (remanding for 

a determination of whether there is sufficient information to allow a meaningful retroactive 

competency hearing); see also United States v. Jones, 336 F.3d 245, 260 (3rd Cir. 2003); 

People v. Ary, 118 Cal. App. 4th 1016, 1029 (Cal. App. 2004); State v. Hawkins, 363 P.3d 

348, 354 (Idaho 2015). 

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Conclusion 

We REMAND this case to the superior court for reconsideration of the 

defendant’s competency on the current record and, if feasible, a retrospective 

determination of the defendant’s competency to stand trial. 

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