Opinion ID: 2365781
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Defendant's competency at the sentencing stage

Text: The defendant contends in his motion for revision of sentence pursuant to Rule 35(a), M.R.Crim.P. [2] that, due to the fact that he [Dyer] was in bad psychological shape on that Monday morning, it was illegal and improper to pass sentence upon him at that time and that its denial was reversible error. This motion was filed on March 22, 1973, three days following the sentencing proceeding and was the first time the defendant's contemporaneous competency to be tried and sentenced was alluded to. The jury convicted Mr. Dyer on March 16, 1973. The case was then continued for sentence to the following Monday, March 19, 1973 at which time the presiding Justice fully inquired of the defendant himself and received complete information respecting his family background, his education and his previous brushes with the law. Dyer disclosed to the Court his receiving shock treatments at the New Hampshire State Hospital and the South Florida State Hospital. When allowed by the Court to say what he wanted to say, Dyer informed the Court that he had been a mental patient all his life, that he was classified by the experts as of the schizophrenic paranoid type. He argued with the Justice that his mental condition was a permanent one. He further asserted that at the Maine State Prison the care and treatment provided for prisoners who show any signs of mental illness was solitary confinement, which, he said, produced severe mental anguish and was cruelty he could not allow to happen to him. When he realized that the presiding Justice would not continue the case for sentence, Dyer reached into his pocket, pulled out a white envelope apparently containing a flammable substance and set himself on fire. The flames were extinguished. The defendant was handcuffed and placed in a stretcher. The Court then proceeded to pass sentence while the defendant lay on the stretcher with his eyes in a closed position. Sentencing of a criminally convicted person while that person is legally incompetent would be in violation of his constitutional rights of due process. Thursby v. State, 1966, Me., 223 A.2d 61 at p. 66. Article 1, section 6, of the Constitution of Maine, provides that [i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have a right to be heard by himself and his counsel, or either, at his election. If at the time of the sentencing the defendant was afflicted with such mental incompetence as rendered him incapable of rational as well as factual understanding of the nature and purpose of the proceedings at hand, he could not necessarily be heard by himself as provided by the Constitution at a critical stage of a criminal prosecution against him. Indeed, the sentencing process opens up a most critical moment in a criminal case. The impact of the judicial proceeding at that point is as great if not greater than the vital concern which attaches to the trial itself, in that the criminal defendant is then faced with the more immediate consequences affecting his substantial rights, such as the potential loss of his liberty for a stay behind bars away from his family and friends. It is necessary that the defendant have sufficient mental competency to communicate in a significant way with his lawyer and the court so that, prior to sentence, facts may be marshaled and evidence may be given of mitigating circumstances in aid to the presiding justice in his exercise of discretion in the passing of sentence. See also Rule 32(a), M.R.Crim.P. Sentencing is a critical stage of a criminal prosecution. See, Mempa v. Rhay, 1967, 389 U.S. 128, 88 S.Ct. 254, 19 L.Ed.2d 336; People v. Dismore, 1975, 33 Ill.App.3d 495, 342 N.E.2d 151; von Lusch v. State, 1976, 31 Md.App. 271, 356 A.2d 277, 289. The word prosecution within the constitutional provision providing that in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have a right to be heard by himself and his counsel, or either, at his election is a term of art and in legal perspective encompasses the act of sentencing. The sentence is the judgment and, when pronounced, terminates the criminal prosecution, except as otherwise provided by Rule 35(a), M.R.Crim.P., which empowers the sentencing justice to revise a sentence prior to the commencement of execution thereof and to correct an illegal sentence or a sentence imposed in an illegal manner within certain time limitations. See Bradley v. United States, 1973, 410 U.S. 605, 93 S.Ct. 1151, 35 L.Ed.2d 528; United States v. Caldwell, 1972, 3 Cir., 463 F.2d 590. We may repeat what we said in Green v. State, 1968, Me., 247 A.2d 117 at 120: [W]hen the time for sentencing has been reached, the voice of the advocate will rise, in due protection of the offender, with vigorous, influential and informatory dialogue, to the end that the judicial choice of sentence may be made within a sound discretion in the light of all the mitigating circumstances favorable to his client. Our Constitution extends to the accused after conviction the right to be heard by himself and his counsel, or either, at his election. A meaningful exercise of such personal constitutional right mandates that at the time of sentence the convicted person be mentally competent in the legal sense. Counsel's failure to suggest to the court present mental incapacity prior to or during the sentencing proceeding and to request a judicial determination thereof at that time is no bar in and of itself to a belated claim in a motion for revision of sentence. See Thursby, supra, at page 66. Counsel initially has the responsibility of raising the question of incompetence of the defendant to stand sentencing by bringing to the attention of the court such facts in his possession tending to show that the defendant was then incapable of understanding the nature and object of the sentencing proceedings and was unable to cooperate with him for the presentation of a meaningful allocution to the court. See Thursby, supra, at page 68. When counsel did not suggest to the trial court either at trial or at the sentencing stage the probability of the accused's present incompetence to stand trial and to be sentenced, an appellate court is justified in assuming, unless the contrary appears, that counsel was satisfied no such impairment then existed. Thursby, supra, at page 69. Whether the presiding Justice, on motion for revision of sentence, should have initiated a formal inquiry as to the mental competency of the defendant at the time of sentence is a question the solution of which rested in the sound discretion of the trial court. Thursby, supra, at pages 68-69. It is true that counsel at the hearing on the motion reiterated the history of past irrational behavior and abnormal conduct on the part of Mr. Dyer, including numerous suicidal attempts, together with his previous confinement for mental disturbance, evidence with which the trial Justice was familiar by reason of the fact that such evidence had been introduced at trial on the issue of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. The trial Justice evaluated Mr. Dyer's court room behavior in setting himself afire as the act of an exhibitionist and his seeming unconscious posture thereafter as a fake. The trial Court had the opportunity to observe the defendant and to evaluate his rational as well as factual understanding of the sentencing proceedings and the sufficiency of his ability to communicate with his lawyer and assist him in presenting a meaningful allocution prior to sentence. We cannot say from a review of this transcript that the Justice below abused his discretion in not revising his previous sentence and ordering an inquiry into the competency of the defendant for a future hearing on resentencing. The entry will be Appeal denied.