Opinion ID: 697732
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutional requirements to cure a Pate violation.

Text: 97 It is clear that a Pate violation can only be cured by a post-conviction hearing in which the state bears the burden of proving that the defendant was competent to stand trial. In other words, the state must bear the burden of retrospectively proving competence if the trial court failed to provide the defendant with the constitutionally required contemporaneous hearing. 1 98 We need look no further than Pate itself to see that this is true. The opinion in Pate can be divided analytically into two parts. In part one, discussing the constitutional violation, the Supreme Court confirmed a defendant's right to a contemporaneous hearing where a good faith doubt arises before sentencing concerning the defendant's competence to stand trial. In the second part of Pate, discussing the appropriate relief for such a violation, the Supreme Court established that where the trial court failed to hold the required contemporaneous hearing the state then bears the burden of nonpersuasion in any subsequent competency determination. 99 The second part of Pate discusses the appropriate relief for a Pate violation. This second part of Pate has not been analyzed as often as the first, but it is well established and frequently applied. In Pate, after determining that the defendant's constitutional right to a contemporaneous competency hearing had been violated, the Supreme Court turned to the question of what relief was proper on habeas review. The state argued that it could cure the violation by holding a retrospective hearing, but the Court disagreed, noting that after six years there was insufficient evidence to make the required competency determination. 100 At this point, if the burden in a retrospective competency determination had been on the defendant, the Court would have affirmed the state court conviction. Instead, the Court reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial; thus the Court established that the burden of proving a defendant's competence in a retrospective determination is on the state. 101 This precedent has been consistently followed by the Supreme Court, see, e.g., Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162, 183, 95 S.Ct. 896, 909, 43 L.Ed.2d 103 (1975) (reversing for new trial after finding that remand for psychiatric evaluation to determine whether defendant was competent to stand trial six years ago was not a proper remedy), and has frequently been applied by this circuit, see, e.g., Evans v. Raines, 800 F.2d 884, 888 (9th Cir.1986) (upholding the findings of a competency hearing held five years ex post facto only because the evidence was sufficient to retrospectively determine competence); Sieling v. Eyman, 478 F.2d 211, 215-16 (9th Cir.1973) (remanding to trial court to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to determine competence retrospectively). 2 102 In every case where our court or the Supreme Court has addressed the sufficiency of the evidence for making a retrospective determination, we have affirmed the view that the state bears the burden of nonpersuasion: where the evidence is insufficient to make a retrospective determination, the conviction is reversed and the case remanded for a new trial. The necessary conclusion from these cases is that the state bears the burden of proving competence in a retrospective hearing held after a Pate violation. This is precisely the conclusion of the Eleventh Circuit, James v. Singletary, 957 F.2d 1562 (11th Cir.1992), which examined the issue in greater detail than any other circuit. 3 103 Once the petitioner has established [that the trial court should sua sponte have held a competency hearing] ... he or she has made out a federal constitutional violation. At this point, the state has the opportunity to establish before the federal district court the petitioner's competency at the time of trial. 104 James, 957 F.2d at 1571 (emphasis added). 105 The majority argues that Medina v. California, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 2572, 120 L.Ed.2d 353 (1992), requires us to disregard the compelling logic of James. In Medina, the Supreme Court addressed the question, not addressed in Pate, of who must bear the burden of proof in a contemporaneous Pate hearing. Medina determined that the Constitution permits the states to place the burden on the defendant in the required contemporaneous competency hearing. This holding is completely consistent with Pate and James. 106 The Medina opinion explicitly discussed and re-affirmed the first part of Pate, that a defendant is entitled to a contemporaneous hearing in the event doubts are raised as to competence. Id. at ---- - ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2578-79. The Supreme Court went on to explain that the allocation of the burden of proof in such a contemporaneous hearing is not of constitutional dimension. Id. The test for whether a state procedure violates the Constitution is that of fundamental fairness, and no principle of fundamental fairness is violated by placing on a defendant the burden of proof in a contemporaneous competency hearing. Id. One of the reasons that fundamental fairness is not violated is that in a contemporaneous hearing only a very small proportion of the cases are affected by the state's allocation of the burden of proof: cases where the evidence as to competence is in perfect equipoise. Id. 107 The Medina opinion did not directly or indirectly address the second part of Pate discussing the proper relief when no contemporaneous hearing is held despite doubt about the defendant's competence. In Medina, the required contemporaneous hearing was held. The only question was the adequacy of that contemporaneous hearing. Thus, Medina did not discuss the burden of proof in a retrospective competence determination after a Pate violation. See Appellee's brief at 5 (conceding this point). We therefore remain bound by Pate and its progeny on this issue. 108 Even if the holding in Medina were read to cast some doubt on the second part of Pate, there are good reasons not to extend Medina in such a radical fashion as does the majority. In contrast with contemporaneous determinations, it will frequently be the case that the critical facts necessary for making a retrospective competency determination are unavailable years after the trial, thereby leaving the evidence in equipoise on the issue whether the defendant was competent at the time of trial. See Evans, 800 F.2d at 888 (When the state court fails in [its duty to conduct a contemporaneous hearing], it often may be impossible to repair the damage retrospectively.). 109 Allowing the burden to fall on the defendant to prove incompetence in the retrospective determination would result in affirmances in every case where the record has become stale. This is the exact opposite of the current practice. Yet in such cases it is the state court's error in failing to hold a contemporaneous hearing that results in the loss of evidence. It is fundamentally unfair to allow the conviction of a possibly incompetent defendant to stand because of the state's failure to observe constitutionally mandated procedures in the first instance. 110 The case at bar is a case in point. It would not have been difficult at the time of Moran's trial to have conducted a hearing to determine the actual effect of the drugs that Moran had ingested on his ability to meaningfully participate in trial decisions. In contrast, by the time of his post-conviction hearing the only evidence of the actual effect of the drugs was Moran's testimony that they caused him not to care about what happened. The Nevada Supreme Court specifically relied on the paucity of evidence about the actual effect of the drugs in dismissing Moran's appeal. 3/15/89 Order Dismissing Appeal at 3-4 (Moran presented no medical evidence in the post-conviction hearing which necessarily established that the medication influenced him to such an extent that he was unable to understand the meaning and consequences of his plea. (emphasis added)). 4 In other words, the Nevada Supreme Court specifically relied on Moran's failure to produce evidence that may have been available when the Pate hearing should have been held, but which was no longer available by the time of the post-conviction hearing. 5 II. KNOWING, VOLUNTARY, AND INTELLIGENT WAIVER 111 Even if it were determined that Moran was competent, I would conclude that his guilty plea and waiver of right to counsel were not knowingly and voluntarily tendered, as required by the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The majority's discussion of this issue is very brief, and the majority completely fails to discuss the impact of Moran's mental problems and state-prescribed drugs on his decision. 112 The Nevada trial judge was required to determine whether Moran's waiver of constitutional rights was adequate to meet federal standards. Those standards are the same for a guilty plea and for a waiver of counsel. Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 242-43, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 1711-12, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969). Courts are required to indulge in every reasonable presumption against waiver. Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 404, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 1242, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977) (in habeas proceeding, it is incumbent on the State to prove that a waiver was voluntary); See also Parke v. Raley, --- U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 517, 523, 121 L.Ed.2d 391 (1992) (contrasting direct appeal, where the Constitution requires States to grant a presumption of invalidity to an uninformed guilty plea, with collateral challenge, including habeas petition, where there is no such presumption). Our review of the state's voluntariness determination is de novo, although we accord a presumption of correctness to the factual findings underpinning the state's ultimate voluntariness determination. Terrovona v. Kincheloe, 852 F.2d 424, 428 (9th Cir.1988) (state's voluntariness determination is not subject to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254(d) presumption of correctness). 113 The competency determination and the knowing, intelligent and voluntary waiver determination require interrelated, but not identical, inquiries. Whereas the competency determination turns on whether Moran had the capacity to knowingly and voluntarily waive his rights, the knowing and voluntary inquiry turns on whether he actually did knowingly and voluntarily waive his rights. Godinez v. Moran, --- U.S. ----, ---- n. 12, 113 S.Ct. 2680, 2687 n. 12, 125 L.Ed.2d 321 (1993). 114 A defendant who is incompetent obviously may not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waive constitutional rights. See Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 384, 86 S.Ct. 836, 841, 15 L.Ed.2d 815 (1966). But a mere showing that a defendant is competent is not sufficient to demonstrate that the waiver of right to counsel was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. In this sense there is a 'heightened' standard for pleading guilty and for waiving the right to counsel.... Moran, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2687 (emphasis in original). Or, as Justice Frankfurter stated nearly a half century ago, [t]here must be both the capacity to make an understanding choice and an absence of subverting factors so that the choice is clearly free and responsible. Von Moltke v. Gillies, 332 U.S. 708, 729, 68 S.Ct. 316, 326, 92 L.Ed. 309 (1948) (Frankfurter, J., concurring) (emphasis added). 115 The majority's critical error is that it unreasonably narrows this inquiry. It completely fails to examine whether Moran's mental state and the drugs he was given subverted his decisions to waive counsel and plead guilty. 116 In the context of Moran's waiver of counsel, the majority examines only whether Moran was advised of his rights and whether he indicated unequivocally that he understood those rights. Majority at pp. 699-700. The majority does not discuss whether, and if so to what extent, Moran's decision was affected by the drugs and by his clinically depressed state. 117 In the context of Moran's guilty plea, the majority quotes North Carolina v. Alford to the effect that we must look to whether the guilty plea is a voluntary and intelligent choice among the alternative courses of action, 400 U.S. 25, 31, 91 S.Ct. 160, 164, 27 L.Ed.2d 162 (1970). But the majority does not apply this standard. Rather, it looks only to whether Moran understood the rights he was forsaking.... Id. at 699. This is a different question from whether Moran made a knowing, voluntary, and intelligent choice. 118 Where a defendant's mental state has not been called into question, an inquiry such as that undertaken in the majority opinion is sufficient. But where, as here, the defendant was suicidal, depressed, and taking powerfully psychoactive drugs, we have an additional duty to determine whether these factors subverted his decision to such an extent that they precluded a truly free and rational choice. See United States v. Christensen, 18 F.3d 822, 825-26 (9th Cir.1994) (mental or emotional instability of defendant provoked suspicion that waiver of right to jury trial may not have been knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently tendered). 119 To do so, we are obliged to follow the two-step procedure discussed in the following section: First, we must determine whether the state trial court's transcript contains enough information for us to determine that the waiver was knowing intelligent and voluntary, i.e., if the Faretta canvass was adequate. Second, if the Faretta canvass was inadequate, as I believe it was, we must examine the entire record to determine whether, under the totality of the circumstances, this is one of the rare cases in which we may affirm a waiver of constitutional rights despite an inadequate waiver canvass. The majority fails to undertake such an analysis, and because of that failure comes to an erroneous conclusion. 120 A. Procedural Requirements of Faretta and Boykin. 121 The Constitution requires a state trial court to engage in careful inquiry before accepting a waiver of constitutional rights. Arnold v. United States, 414 F.2d 1056, 1058 (9th Cir.1969). 122 In the context of waiver of the right to counsel, this careful inquiry is accomplished by means of a Faretta canvass. Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975) (establishing the right to self-representation, but only where the record establishes that the accused knows what he is doing and his choice is made with eyes open (emphasis added)). 6 To conduct a proper Faretta canvass, the trial court must investigate as long and as thoroughly as the circumstances of the case before him demand. Von Moltke, 332 U.S. at 723-724, 68 S.Ct. at 323. A colloquy conducted in a rote and mechanical fashion ... may look reassuring on the record but will do little to protect the rights of the accused. United States v. Balough, 820 F.2d 1485, 1488-90 (9th Cir.1987) (Kozinski, J., concurring). Thus, the court cannot meet the principles of Faretta by just going through the motions of merely eliciting the proper responses to boilerplate questions. Instead, [a] judge can make certain that an accused's professed waiver of counsel is understandingly and wisely made only from a penetrating and comprehensive examination of all the circumstances under which such a plea is tendered. 332 U.S. at 724, 68 S.Ct. at 323. 123 Despite the importance of the Faretta canvass, an inadequate Faretta inquiry by the trial court does not conclusively establish absence of effective waiver. Mason v. Pitchess, 440 F.2d 454 (9th Cir.1971). But we only rarely affirm a waiver of constitutional rights absent an adequate Faretta canvass on the record by the court to determine whether the waiver is understandingly and voluntarily offered. Balough, 820 F.2d at 1488-90. In fact, in federal court, when an accused's mental or emotional state has been called into question, an in-depth colloquy which reasonably assures the court that under the particular facts of the case, the ... waiver was voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently made is required. Christensen, 18 F.3d at 826 (reversing conviction because of failure to adequately canvass manic-depressive defendant before accepting written waiver of right to jury trial). Although we have not imposed a similar requirement on the states, Christensen suggests the skepticism with which a waiver of constitutional rights should be viewed when the defendant's mental state has been called into question and there has not been an adequate on-the-record inquiry into the effect of the mental state on the defendant's waiver. 124