Opinion ID: 768365
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Coe's Habeas Application

Text: 26 Coe argues that the Tennessee courts erred in deciding his competency to be executed because they evaluated his present competency rather than determining his future competency at the moment of execution. The thrust of Coe's argument is that, he claims, he suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which causes him to dissociate under stress, and that he will thus dissociate as his execution grows near and will not have the requisite competency at the time of his execution. 27 In Ford, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of a prisoner who is insane. See 477 U.S. at 409-10. If taken to its logical extreme, as suggested by Coe, a state would be obligated to determine whether a prisoner is competent to be executed at the exact moment of execution in order to comply with Ford. Justice O'Connor acknowledged that this problem is due to the nature of a competency-to-be-executed claim in her opinion in Ford: 28 By definition, [a Ford claim] can never be conclusively and finally determined: Regardless of the number of prior adjudications of the issue, until the very moment of execution the prisoner can claim that he has become insane sometime after the previous determination to the contrary. 29 Id. at 429 (O'Connor, J., concurring in the result in part and dissenting in part). 30 We do not believe that the Supreme Court in Ford meant to require a state to determine a prisoner's competency at the exact time of his execution. It would be impossible to follow the procedural protections identified in the opinions of Justice Marshall and Justice Powell in a meaningful way in the moments before execution; a state could not make a sound decision in accordance with due process regarding a prisoner's competency to be executed at this time. Nevertheless, a state must make its determination when execution is imminent. See Stewart v. Martinez-Villareal, 523 U.S. 637, 644-45 (1998). Whether the competency determination is made in the week or the month before the prisoner's scheduled execution, the state is entitled to exercise discretion in creating its own procedures [a]s long as basic fairnessis observed. Ford, 477 U.S. at 427 (Powell, J., concurring). 31 In the present case, on December 15, 1999, the Tennessee Supreme Court remanded the issue of Coe's competency to the Tennessee trial court after setting Coe's execution for March 23, 2000. The trial court held an evidentiary hearing on Coe's competency in late January 2000 and issued its decision on February 2, 2000. The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's decision on March 6, 2000. We conclude that the Tennessee courts' determination was made while Coe's execution, less than two months away, was imminent. The Tennessee courts' use of the phrase present competency did not constitute a misunderstanding of the proper issue under Ford of whether Coe is competent to be executed at his imminently scheduled execution date. 32 We acknowledge Coe's argument that, due to the special nature of his claimed DID affliction, he will degenerate as the execution looms and his condition will significantly worsen. The Tennessee Supreme Court expressly set forth a procedure in Van Tran to deal with this type of situation. The court stated, 33 If a prisoner is found to be competent, subsequent Ford claims will be disallowed unless the prisoner, by way of motion for stay, provides this Court with an affidavit from a mental health professional showing that there has been a substantial change in the prisoner's mental health since the previous determination of competency was made and the showing is sufficient to raise a substantial question about the prisoner's competency to be executed. 34 Van Tran, 6 S.W.3d at 272. This state procedure adequately addresses the situation in which a prisoner's competency changes after the Tennessee state courts make their competency determination by requiring the prisoner to establish a substantial change in his competency. In light of the fact that two state courts have already made a determination of Coe's competency to be executed, we conclude that Tennessee's requirement that he make a threshold showing of a substantial change comports with notions of basic fairness. 35 In sum, because the procedures followed by the Tennessee courts in this case satisfy the requirements of due process, we cannot conclude that they represent an unreasonable application of the Ford opinion.
36 Coe also asserts that the Tennessee courts applied an improper standard of competency in deciding his competency to be executed. As discussed above in Part II.A.2 supra, in Van Tran the Tennessee Supreme Court adopted the competency standard advocated by Justice Powell's concurring opinion in Ford. In determining the proper standard, Justice Powell looked for guidance in the common law tradition and in the modern practice of prohibiting the execution of the insane. He noted that there were differing justifications at common law for not executing insane criminals. One justification, also applied in the context of competency to stand trial, was that a prisoner must be competent to be executed so that he may assist in his defense. See Ford, 477 U.S. at 419 (Powell, J., concurring) ('if after judgment he become of non sane memory, his execution shall be spared; for were he of sound memory he might allege somewhat in stay of judgment or execution' (quoting 1 M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown 35 (1736)). Justice Powell, however, concluded that this justification does not make sense in modern practice. First, he noted that criminal defendants are afforded broader constitutional guarantees than at common law, including the right to effective assistance of counsel at trial and on appeal and extensive judicial review through direct appeal and state and federal collateral review. It is thus unlikely indeed that a defendant today could go to his death with knowledge of undiscovered trial error that might set him free. Id. at420 (Powell, J., concurring). In addition, Justice Powell observed that in cases tried at common law execution often followed fairly quickly after trial, so that incompetence at the time of execution was linked as a practical matter with incompetence at the trial itself. Id. at 420-21 (Powell, J., concurring). Justice Powell then concluded that [t]he more general concern of the common law - that executions of the insane are simply cruel - retains its vitality. Id. at 421 (Powell, J., concurring). Furthermore, one of the death penalty's critical justifications, its retributive force, depends on the defendant's awareness of the penalty's existence and purpose. Id. (Powell, J., concurring). In order to achieve this justification, Powell instructed that prisoners should be considered insane for the purpose of execution if they are unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it. Id. at 422 (Powell, J., concurring). 37 We agree that a prisoner's ability to assist in his defense is not a necessary element to a determination of competency to be executed. Moreover, Coe has not shown how a prisoner could assist his counsel, a mental health professional, or the trial judge in deciding on his competency when the prisoner's very competency is the matter at issue. 38 In arguing that the common law standard governing the modern standard for competency to stand trial, which includes the assistance inquiry, also applies in a competency-to-be-executed proceeding, Coe asserts that the Supreme Court has held that the standard for competency does not change depending on the stage of the criminal proceedings. He cites to Godinez v. Moran, 509 U.S. 389, 398 (1993), in which the Supreme Court concluded that the competency standard for pleading guilty or for waiving the right to trial is the same as the competency standard for standing trial. In a concurring opinion, Justice Kennedy asserted, [t]he Due Process Clause does not mandate different standards of competency at various stages of or for different decisions made during the criminal proceedings. Id. at 404 (Kennedy, J., concurring). It appears from his opinion, however, that Justice Kennedy was concerned that the same standard be applied from the time of a defendant's arraignment through his sentencing. See id. at 404-05 (Kennedy, J., concurring). Because competency to be executed involves different interests than competency to stand trial in the first instance, we do not believe that a state rigidly must apply the competency-to-stand-trial standard in this context where it does not make sense in modern practice. 39 Moreover, the Supreme Court seems to have accepted Justice Powell's competency standard as the Ford holding. See Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 333 (1989) (noting that under Ford v. Wainwright, someone who is 'unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it' cannot be executed (citation omitted)). Therefore, we conclude that the Van Tran opinion's adoption of Justice Powell's standard, that only those who are unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and the reason they are to suffer it are entitled to a reprieve, satisfies due process and is not an unreasonable interpretation of Supreme Court precedent. Van Tran, 6 S.W.3d at 266 (adopting the cognitive test). 40 We note that Coe also challenges the Tennessee trial court's application of the Van Tran standard in his case. In its ruling on Coe's competency, the trial court stated, Petitioner realizes he is facing execution, and that he knows it is because he has been convicted of murdering a little girl. Coe v. State, No. B-73812, slip op. at 27 (Tenn. Crim. Ct. Feb. 2, 2000) (emphasis added). Coe argues that the trial court impermissibly relied on Coe's knowledge that he is to be executed for his murder conviction rather thanCoe's comprehension of the sentence and its implications. See Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus / Complaint for Relief at 44. We conclude, however, that the Tennessee trial court properly followed Justice Powell's competency standard as adopted and applied in Van Tran and determined that Coe is aware of his imminent execution and the reason for it, showing that Coe has made the requisite connection between his crime and his punishment 4 .
41 Coe also argues that the Tennessee courts erred in following Van Tran's placement of the burden of proof on Coe to prove his incompetency to be executed by a preponderance of the evidence rather than placing this burden on the state of Tennessee. To support his argument, Coe asserts that the burden of proof must reflect the allocation of error under the circumstances and cites to Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418 (1979), and Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976) for support. Memorandum of Law in Support of Stay at 82. He also states that because his mental state fluctuates, it is not proper to require him to bear the burden of proof. Id. The Addington decision, however, dealt with the proper standard for a civil commitment proceeding not for a competency determination. See 441 U.S. at 425. 42 Although the Supreme Court has never established who bears the burden of proof in a competency-to-be-executed claim, 5 it has held that a California statute requiring a criminal defendant to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he is not competent to stand trial does not violate due process. See Medina v. California, 505 U.S. 437, 449 (1992). The Court specifically rejected the use of the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test for evaluating the adequacy of state procedures in this context because it does not provide the appropriate framework for assessing the validity of state procedural rules which, like the one at bar, are part of the criminal process. Id. at 443. Rather, the Court instructed that a state's procedure regarding the burden of proof in the criminal context will not be prohibited unless 'it offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.' Id. at 445 (quoting Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 202 (1977) (quotations omitted)). After examining the historical and modern treatment of the burden of proof in competency proceedings and the requirements of fundamentalfairness, the Court concluded that placing this burden on a criminal defendant satisfies due process. See id. at 446-49. 43 In accordance with the Supreme Court's holding in Medina, we conclude that the placement of the burden of proof on Coe to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he is incompetent to be executed does not violate due process. We recognize that determining the competency of a criminal defendant facing trial involves different interests than determining the competency of a prisoner facing execution. In light of the fact that a prisoner on death row has previously been found competent to stand trial and has been convicted and sentenced for a capital offense, however, we see no reason why a prisoner's competency to be executed should be treated more strictly than a criminal defendant's competency to stand trial for the purpose of due process. Therefore, the Tennessee courts' placement of the burden of proof on Coe to establish his lack of competency to be executed comports with the procedural protections of the Due Process Clause and is not an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent.
44 Finally, Coe raises a number of other challenges to the procedures used by the Tennessee courts in deciding his competency. Given Justice Powell's opinion in Ford, we believe that [a]s long as basic fairness is observed in a prisoner's competency-to-be-executed determination, a state has substantial leeway to determine what process best balances the various interests at stake. Ford, 477 U.S. at 427 (Powell, J., concurring). Accordingly, we must give the Tennessee courts substantial discretion in fashioning the procedures employed in Coe's competency proceedings. Where Coe was given an extensive hearing over several days and was given the opportunity to present evidence and to cross-examine the state's mental health experts, it is not our role to second guess all of the procedural decisions made by the Tennessee courts. Moreover, we note that the district court ably addressed Coe's claims in a thorough 42-page opinion denying habeas relief. It would serve no jurisprudential purpose to discuss these claims any further.