Opinion ID: 172793
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Incompetency at the Time of the Plea

Text: In his first claim of error challenging his convictions, Pinson asserts that he was mentally incompetent at the time of his guilty plea, and that the judge failed to adequately ascertain that Pinson's plea was knowing and intelligent. Because Pinson phrased this claim to the district court in terms of ineffective assistance of counsel with respect to his competency, rather than directly claiming that he was incompetent and thus that his plea was invalid, the district court held the claim barred by his appeal waiver. Given the liberal construction we are bound to give the filings of pro se applicants, however, we cannot embrace the district court's reasoning on this issue. Liberally construed, Pinson's competency claim goes to the validity of the plea agreement itselfincluding the appeal waiver provisionand so the appeal waiver cannot preclude the claim. See Hahn, 359 F.3d at 1325. But, as the district court noted, in accepting Pinson's guilty plea, the court had ample evidence before it both of Pinson's history of emotional problems and his competency as of the date of the hearing. Both prior to accepting the guilty plea and as part of the presentence investigation, Pinson's competency was thoroughly tested during his original proceedings. At Pinson's plea colloquy, the following exchange occurred between the judge, the defendant, and the defendant's counsel: THE COURT: Have you ever been confined in an institution for the treatment of mental illness or ever been found mentally incompetent or mentally ill? DEFENDANT PINSON: Yes, Your Honor. THE COURT: Have you actually been found mentally incompetent or mentally ill DEFENDANT PINSON: Not mentally incompetent, but suffering from depression and other maladies, but not actually incompetent or anything of that matter. THE COURT: Are you satisfied you understood what you were doing at the time of these alleged offenses? DEFENDANT PINSON: I knew exactly what I was doing, [Y]our Honor. THE COURT: And are you satisfied you understand what's going on today? DEFENDANT PINSON: I understand everything that's going on, sir. THE COURT: Do you have any doubt about that, Mr. Wells? MR. WELLS: No. As a matter of fact, on the record, I would inform the Court that I havethe Court authorized me to hire a psychologist to help in this case. He has reviewed the records. He has also talked with Mr. Pinson over at the county jail and I do anticipate using him at the time of sentencing for mitigation purposes, but he informed me that it is also his opinion that Mr. Pinson is very competent, that he does have definite issues, but that he is competent to understand what he was doing. (R. vol. 1 at 61-62.) Based upon this exchange and the evidence before the court both at the time of the plea and before sentencing, we cannot say that the original court had any reason to believe that Pinson was not competent to plead guilty and waive his right to appeal. In his § 2255 petition, Pinson adduced no competent evidence that would lead us to question this conclusion. Pinson has thus failed to carry his burden of making out a substantial showing of the denial of his right to due process, and we thus decline to grant a COA on this issue.