Title: State v. Coats
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 49S02-1305-CR-328
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: February 18, 2014

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT 
Gregory F. Zoeller 
Attorney General of Indiana 
 
Andrew A. Kobe 
Deputy Attorney General 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE 
Darren Bedwell 
Ruth Ann Johnson 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
 
 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court  
No. 49S02-1305-CR-328 
STATE OF INDIANA, 
Appellant (Plaintiff below), 
v. 
WILLIAM COATS, 
Appellee (Defendant below). 
Appeal from the Marion Superior Court, No. 49F08-1004-FD-30232 
The Honorable Barbara Collins, Judge 
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A02-1206-CR-526 
February 18, 2014 
David, Justice. 
Following his arrest for class D felony sexual battery, sixty-seven-year-old William Coats 
filed a motion for a competency determination.  Doctors evaluating Coats diagnosed him with 
dementia, concluded he was not competent to stand trial, and predicted he could not be restored 
to competency.  Based on the doctors’ reports, the trial court found that Coats was not competent 
to stand trial and that Coats could not be restored to competency.  Subsequently, the State moved 
Feb 18 2014, 11:34 am
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to commit Coats to the Division of Mental Health and Addiction (“DMHA”) pursuant to Ind. 
Code chapter 35-36-3, Indiana’s Comprehension to Stand Trial statutes.  The trial court denied 
the State’s motion, and this interlocutory appeal ensued.  Because we hold that Ind. Code § 35-
36-3-1(b) requires trial courts to commit defendants found not competent to stand trial to the 
DMHA for competency restoration services, we remand this case to the trial court with an order 
to commit Coats to the DMHA. 
Facts and Procedural History 
On April 15, 2010, the State charged Coats with class D felony sexual battery.  The 
alleged victim was his granddaughter.  Born in 1943, Coats has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s 
disease.  
After pleading not guilty at an initial hearing, Coats posted bond.  He has since remained 
released on bond.  On January 27, 2011, Coats filed a Motion for Psychiatric Examination to 
Determine Comprehension to Stand Trial.  In order to determine Coats’s competency to stand 
trial, psychiatrist Dr. George Parker and psychologist Dr. Stephanie Callaway met with Coats for 
approximately one hour.  Issuing separate written reports to the trial court, Drs. Parker and 
Callaway concluded that Coats suffered from dementia, a progressive disease, and as a result was 
not competent to stand trial.  Additionally, Dr. Parker opined that Coats would not be able to be 
restored to competency, and Dr. Callaway predicted “little likelihood” that Coats would be able 
to be restored to competency.    
Based on the doctors’ reports and without a hearing, on February 8, 2012, the trial court 
found Coats not competent to stand trial.  In addition, the trial court found that Coats could not 
be restored to competency, and that he was not a public safety risk.  On February 29, 2012, the 
State filed a written request to commit Coats to the DMHA pursuant to Ind. Code § 35-36-3-1(b).  
Filing a motion to dismiss the charge against him, Coats argued that since he cannot be restored 
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to competency, commitment would violate his rights to due process and equal protection under 
the Fourteenth Amendment.  On June 15, 2002, the trial court denied both the State’s and 
Coats’s motions.  
The State then requested that the denial of its motion be certified for interlocutory appeal, 
and the trial court granted the State’s request.  Before the Court of Appeals, the State contended 
that the trial court erred by refusing to commit Coats to the DMHA after it found him not 
competent to stand trial because Ind. Code § 35-36-3-1(b) unambiguously required the trial court 
to commit the defendant to the DMHA for competency restoration services.  In response, Coats 
maintained that the State may not detain a defendant found not competent to stand trial for 
competency restoration services once the trial court has determined that the defendant cannot be 
restored to competency.   
In a split opinion, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s denial of the State’s 
motion to commit Coats to the DMHA.  State v. Coats, 981 N.E.2d 1273, 1279 (Ind. Ct. App. 
2013).  Dissenting, Judge Riley reasoned that “the statute does not give the trial court discretion 
to decline to order commitment even where it concludes that the defendant could never be 
restored to competency.”  Id. at 1279–80 (Riley, J., dissenting).  The State petitioned this Court 
for transfer, which we granted, thereby vacating the opinion below.  Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A).  
I. 
Indiana Code Chapter 35-36-3 
One issue is contested here: whether a trial court has discretion to refuse to order 
commitment to the DMHA where it concludes that a defendant found not competent to stand 
trial can never be returned to competency.  This issue presents a question of statutory 
interpretation subject to de novo review.  Pinnacle Prop. Dev. Grp., LLC v. City of 
Jeffersonville, 893 N.E.2d 726, 727 (Ind. 2008).  “In the interpretation of statutes, our goal is to 
determine and give effect to the intent of the legislature in promulgating it.  Our primary 
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resource for this determination is the language used by the legislature, and thus our interpretation 
begins with an examination of the statute’s language.”  Porter Dev., LLC v. First Nat. Bank of 
Valparaiso, 866 N.E.2d 775, 778 (Ind. 2007).  Where the statute’s language is unambiguous, we 
read each word in the “plain, ordinary, and usual sense.”  Id. 
When a defendant files a motion for a competency determination, the trial court must 
follow the procedures of Ind. Code chapter 35-36-3.  Under Ind. Code § 35-36-3-1(a) (Supp. 
2013), if the trial court “has reasonable grounds for believing that the defendant lacks the ability 
to understand the proceedings and assist in the preparation of a defense,” then the trial court shall 
appoint two or three “competent, disinterested” psychiatrists, psychologists, or physicians “who 
have expertise in determining competency.”  At least one of the appointed individuals must be a 
psychiatrist or psychologist.1  Id.  “The individuals who are appointed shall examine the 
defendant . . . as to whether the defendant can understand the proceedings and assist in the 
preparation of the defendant’s defense.”  Id.   
Following the competency evaluation, Ind. Code § 35-36-3-1(b) provides, in pertinent 
part:  
[i]f the court finds that the defendant has the ability to understand 
the proceedings and assist in the preparation of the defendant’s 
defense, the trial shall proceed. If the court finds that the defendant 
lacks this ability, it shall delay or continue the trial and order the 
defendant committed to the division of mental health and 
addiction.  The division of mental health and addiction shall 
provide competency restoration services. 
(emphasis added). 
                                                 
1 The statute further provides that the psychologists must be “endorsed by the Indiana state board 
of examiners in psychology as health service providers in psychology.”  Ind. Code § 35-36-3-
1(a).     
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Within ninety days of the defendant’s admission to a state institution for competency 
restoration services, the superintendent of the state institution  
shall certify to the proper court whether the defendant has a 
substantial probability of attaining the ability to understand the 
proceedings and assist in the preparation of the defendant’s 
defense within the foreseeable future. . . . If a substantial 
probability does not exist, the state institution . . . shall initiate 
regular commitment proceedings under IC 12-26.  If a substantial 
probability does exist, the state institution . . . shall retain the 
defendant: (1) until the defendant attains the ability to understand 
the proceedings and assist in the preparation of the defendant’s 
defense and is returned to the proper court for trial; or (2) for six 
(6) months from the date of the . . . defendant’s admission to a 
state institution . . . whichever first occurs. 
Ind. Code § 35-36-3-3 (2008).  If a defendant found to have a substantial probability of attaining 
competency does not do so within six months of admission, then the state institution shall 
institute regular commitment proceedings under Ind. Code article 12-26.  Ind. Code § 35-36-3-4 
(2008). 
The language of Ind. Code §§ 35-36-3-1,-3, and -4 is unambiguous.  Giving each word its 
plain meaning, it is clear that the legislature intended the trial court and the superintendent to 
have clear responsibilities and separate duties in determining a defendant’s competency to stand 
trial: the trial court initially determines whether the defendant is competent to stand trial, and if 
he or she is not currently competent, then the superintendent of the state institution—after 
providing services aimed at restoring competency—determines whether the defendant has a 
substantial probability of attaining competency within the foreseeable future.  Plainly, the statute 
does not give trial courts discretion to refuse to commit a defendant once it determines that he or 
she is not competent to stand trial.   
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Accordingly, by finding Coats not competent to stand trial but denying the State’s motion 
to commit him to the DMHA for competency restoration services, the trial court here did not 
follow Ind. Code § 35-36-3-1(b).  Although the trial court had no discretion to refuse to commit 
Coats, our analysis does not end here, for Coats does not dispute the plain meaning of the statute.  
Rather, he argues that regardless of the statutory scheme, the State may not detain a defendant 
found not competent to stand trial for competency restoration services once the trial court has 
determined that the defendant cannot be restored to competency. 
II. 
Case Law 
In support of his contention that defendants deemed unable to be restored to competency 
by a trial court may not be committed for futile competency restoration services, Coats cites 
Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715 (1972), State v. Davis, 898 N.E.2d 281 (Ind. 2008), and Curtis 
v. State, 948 N.E.2d 1143 (Ind. 2011).  As set forth below, none of these cases support Coats’s 
position.  
A. 
 Jackson v. Indiana 
First, we reject Coats’s claim that Jackson controls the outcome here. Found not 
competent to stand trial, Jackson was committed to the Department of Mental Health until the 
Department could certify that he was “sane.”  406 U.S. at 719.  At the time, Indiana had “no 
statutory provision for periodic review of the defendant’s condition by either the court or mental 
health authorities.”  Id. at 720.  Concluding that the defendant’s commitment violated his due 
process rights, the United States Supreme Court held that a person charged with a criminal 
offense “who is committed solely on account of his incapacity to proceed to trial cannot be held 
more than the reasonable period of time necessary to determine whether there is a substantial 
probability that he will attain that capacity in the foreseeable future.”  406 U.S. at 731, 738 
(emphasis added).   
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We agree with the Court of Appeals that “[t]he statutes at issue here do not raise the same 
concerns that the court addressed in Jackson.”  Coats, 981 N.E.2d at 1277.  Here, Ind. Code § 35-
36-3-3(a) sets an absolute limit to the length of time the DMHA can take in determining whether 
there is a substantial probability that a defendant will attain competency: the superintendent of 
the state institution must report the defendant’s status to the trial court within ninety days of the 
defendant’s admission to the DMHA.  Indeed, the Jackson holding likely prompted the 
legislature to implement a specific time limit for the DMHA’s determination.   
At no point in his briefs or at oral argument did Coats claim that ninety days was an 
unreasonable period of time for the DMHA’s ascertainment of future competency.  Thus, Coats 
cannot rely upon Jackson for his assertion that defendants deemed unable to be restored to 
competency by a trial court may not be committed for any length of time. 
B. 
State v. Davis 
In Davis, the trial court found the defendant not competent to stand trial and subsequently 
ordered her committed to the DMHA.2  898 N.E.2d at 284.  A staff psychiatrist at the Evansville 
State Hospital evaluated Davis and did not believe there to be a substantial probability that she 
would attain competency, and the trial court granted the hospital’s petition for regular 
commitment.  Id.  Asserting that her hospitalization was tantamount to incarceration and 
exceeded the maximum sentence for the charges she still faced, Davis moved to dismiss the 
charges against her.  Id.  We examined the justifications for committing to the DMHA a 
defendant the trial court found not competent to stand trial.   
Justification for the commitment of an incompetent accused is 
found in the State’s interest in the restoration of the accused to 
                                                 
2 Although Ind. Code chapter 35-36-3 was the statutory scheme under which Davis was found 
not competent to stand trial and committed to the DMHA, the opinion does not specifically cite 
this chapter. 
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competency because of the right of the public and the defendant to 
the prompt disposition of criminal charges pending against him, 
and the protection of the accused against being required to answer 
to charges that she lacks the capacity to understand or to assist her 
attorney in defending against.   
Id. at 289 (internal citations omitted).  It followed that “[c]ommitment of an accused thus focuses 
on the State’s interest in the accused’s restoration to competency and necessarily entails a finding 
of probability that the accused can be so restored.”  Id.    
Ultimately, we affirmed Davis’s motion to dismiss the charges against her, because (1) 
Davis’s pretrial confinement in psychiatric institutions exceeded the maximum sentence the trial 
court could have imposed; and (2) the State advanced no argument that its interests outweighed 
Davis’s liberty interest.  Id. at 290.  These specific circumstances led us to conclude that “it is a 
violation of basic notions of fundamental fairness as embodied in the Due Process Clause of the 
Fourteenth Amendment to hold criminal charges over the head of Davis, an incompetent 
defendant, when it is apparent she will never be able to stand trial.”  Id.   
Coats argues that since he suffers from a progressive disease and will never regain 
competency, fundamental fairness forbids the sexual battery charge being held over his head.  
For Coats, Davis is also significant for the proposition that commitment “necessarily entails a 
finding of probability that the accused can be so restored.”  Id. at 289.  But as set forth below, 
Coats fails to understand a central lesson of Davis: the importance of a proper finding that a 
defendant’s competency cannot be restored.  
C. 
Curtis v. State 
Born with a developmental disability, Curtis was fifty-nine years old at the time of his 
arrest.  Curtis, 948 N.E.2d at 1146.  After a court-ordered competency examination, doctors 
concluded that Curtis suffered from dementia and was not competent to stand trial.  Id.  One 
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doctor stated that Curtis would never be restored to competency, while the other posited that 
restoration was unlikely.  Id.  Moving to dismiss the charges against him, Curtis argued that the 
charges “violate[d] his due process right to fundamental fairness because he is incompetent and 
unlikely to regain competency.”  Id.  
In our analysis, we emphasized the importance of following the procedure set forth in 
Ind. Code chapter 35-36-3, as “[s]tatutes control the appropriate way to determine a defendant’s 
competency and, if necessary, to commit the defendant and provide restoration services.”  Id. at 
1153.  Referring to Ind. Code chapter 35-36-3 and the justifications in Davis for committing a 
defendant found not competent to stand trial, we stated that 
[t]he procedures establish a comprehensive method that balances 
the various interests at stake.  Involuntary commitment is a clear 
deprivation of the defendant’s liberty interest that can be justified 
only on the basis of legitimate state interests. . . . the State’s 
interests cannot be realized if there is a finding that a defendant 
cannot be restored to competency.  
 Id. at 1153–54 (emphasis added). 
Under the facts before us, we determined that Curtis did not have a valid due process 
claim because “the trial court neither has found Curtis incompetent under Indiana Code section 
35-36-3-1 nor has committed him.  Accordingly, there has been no opportunity for a proper 
finding that Curtis will never be restored to competency as there was in Davis.”  Id. at 1154 
(emphasis added).   
Coats seizes upon the language that “the State’s interests cannot be realized if there is a 
finding that a defendant cannot be restored to competency.”  Id. at 1153–54.  And he is correct—
the State’s interest in the restoration of an accused to competency cannot be realized if there is a 
finding that such restoration is not substantially probable in the foreseeable future.  However, as 
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we stated in Curtis and stress below, this finding must be properly made.  Statutorily, this is the 
responsibility of the DMHA, not the trial court.     
D. 
Coats 
Critical in Davis, Curtis, and here is a proper finding that a defendant’s competency to 
stand trial will never be restored.  Through the plain language of Ind. Code § 35-36-3-3, the 
legislature entrusts only the superintendent of the state institution where the defendant has been 
committed with the power to determine that the defendant does not have a substantial probability 
of attaining competency to stand trial within the foreseeable future.  The legislature’s choice is 
deliberate, as it is the DMHA’s experts who observe and work with the committed defendant for 
up to ninety days.  Compared to court-appointed doctors that meet with the defendant for an 
hour, the DMHA experts have more time and vastly more information upon which to base their 
decision.3  
At oral argument, Coats asserted that it would violate his due process rights to be 
committed for up to ninety days after the trial court determined that he would not regain 
competency.  However, Coats misunderstands the significance of Davis and Curtis: until the 
proper statutory procedure is followed, he will not know, under the law, whether he has a 
substantial probability of attaining competency.  Just as Coats is correct to claim that, under 
Curtis, “the State’s interests cannot be realized if there is a finding that a defendant cannot be 
restored to competency,” he is mistaken to conclude that the trial court can properly make this 
finding.  948 N.E.2d at 1154.  The legislature has reserved that authority to the DMHA; 
therefore, the authority to find that a defendant cannot be restored to competency rests alone with 
                                                 
3 We stress that under the plain language of Ind. Code § 35-36-3-1(a), the court-appointed 
doctors determine competency at the time of the defendant’s evaluation, not the likelihood of 
whether the defendant will attain competency in the future. 
 
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the superintendent of the state institution where the defendant has been—or should have been—
committed. 
Coats also argues that “[c]ommitment of an accused . . . necessarily entails a finding of 
probability that the accused can be so restored.”  (Coats’s Br. at 10 (quoting Davis, 898 N.E.2d 
at 289).)  Again, the plain language of Ind. Code § 35-36-3-1(b) mandates that the trial court, 
upon finding the defendant not competent to stand trial, commit the defendant to the DMHA for 
competency restoration services.  Until the DMHA has the opportunity to observe and evaluate 
the defendant, the State’s interest in the restoration of the accused to competency cannot be 
vindicated.  Moreover, the extent to which restoration of the defendant’s competency is probable 
cannot be known until after the defendant has been committed and treated by the DMHA’s 
experts, as it is the commitment of the accused that facilitates the DMHA’s finding of whether 
the defendant has a substantial probability of attaining competency within the foreseeable future. 
From the plain language of Ind. Code § 35-36-3-1(b), there are two possible results from 
a competency hearing: the first is that the trial court finds the defendant competent to stand trial, 
and the trial proceeds accordingly; the second is that the trial court finds the defendant not 
competent to stand trial and orders the defendant committed to the DHMA for competency 
restoration services.  But Coats contends that there are three possible determinations a trial court 
can make: (1) the defendant is competent to stand trial; (2) the defendant is currently not 
competent to stand trial but may attain competency in the future; or (3) the defendant is currently 
not competent to stand trial and will never attain competency in the future.  We cannot read his 
third option into the statute.  As evidenced by Ind. Code § 35-36-3-1(b)’s unambiguous 
language, the legislature did not intend for trial courts to determine a defendant’s future 
competency.  By finding Coats not competent to stand trial but refusing to order commitment, 
the trial court did not follow the law as it is written.  
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In all likelihood, the trial court here was motivated by the probability that Coats, at the 
time nearly seventy years old and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, is unlikely to ever be 
competent to stand trial.  Although the trial court had the best of intentions, it was bound to 
follow Ind. Code chapter 35-36-3 and had no discretion to substitute its determination as to 
whether Coats would eventually attain competency for that of the superintendent of the state 
institution where he should have been committed.  Only by following the strict statutory 
framework set forth by the legislature in Ind. Code chapter 35-36-3 can both the interests of the 
State and Coats be protected. 
Conclusion 
We therefore remand this case to the trial court with an order to commit Coats to the 
DMHA for competency restoration services. 
Dickson, C.J., Rucker, Massa, and Rush, J.J., concur.