Opinion ID: 768365
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Tennessee's Ford Procedures

Text: 10 Invoking its inherent supervisory authority and with the Ford decision as guidance, the Tennessee Supreme Court recently adopted and set forth the procedures that a death-row prisoner must follow to challenge his competency to be executed. See Van Tran v. State, 6 S.W.3d 257, 265 (Tenn. 1999). First, the court adopted Justice Powell's standard for competency and held that under Tennessee law a prisoner is not competent to be executed if the prisoner lacks the mental capacity to understand the fact of the impending execution and the reason for it. Id. at 266. 11 Next the court established the procedures to be used in Tennessee. After the State Attorney General moves the Tennessee Supreme Court to set an execution date, the prisoner must raise the issue of competency in his response to the motion within the ten-day period for response. If such a motion is made, and the Tennessee Supreme Court sets an execution date, the prisoner's competency claim will be remanded to the trial court where the prisoner was originally tried and sentenced. Within three days of the entry of the remand order, the prisoner must file a petition with the trial court setting forth the factual allegations of incompetence along with supporting affidavits, records, or other materials and a list of any mental health professionals who would be available and willing to testify on the prisoner's behalf. See id. at 267-68. The district attorney general must file a response within three days. Within four days the trial court then must decide whether the prisoner has made the required threshold showing of incompetence in order to receive a hearing as suggested by the opinions of Justice Powell and Justice Marshall. See id. at 268 (citing Ford, 477 U.S. at 417 (Marshall, J., plurality opinion); 477 U.S. at 426 (Powell, J., concurring)). Noting that the Supreme Court did not indicate what would satisfy the threshold showing, the Tennessee Supreme Court looked to Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 82-83 (1985), cited favorably in Justice Powell's concurring opinion, inwhich the Court concluded that a defendant must make a substantial showing of his insanity before due process requires the state to appoint a defense psychiatrist at its expense. It also examined its own cases, applying Ake, which require that before a mental health expert will be appointed to evaluate a defendant's competency to stand trial, the defendant must point to the facts and circumstances of his particular case which warrant a belief that the defendant is incompetent to stand trial. Van Tran, 6 S.W.3d at 268. Accordingly, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that the burden is on the prisoner to present affidavits, depositions, medical reports, or other credible evidence sufficient to demonstrate that there exists a genuine question regarding petitioner's present competency. Id. at 269. The court also emphasized that pursuant to the nature of a Ford claim, the prisoner must submit some evidence from recent mental evaluations or observations relating to his present competency. See id. 12 If the prisoner satisfies this threshold showing for a hearing, the trial court must appoint at least one, but no more than two, mental health professionals from each list submitted by the respective parties. Id. The experts then must submit written reports to the trial court. Within ten days after the filing of the mental health professionals' reports, the trial court is required to hold a hearing to determine competency. No jury is impaneled. At the hearing, the prisoner has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence his incompetency to be executed. See id. at 270-71. Adopting the more stringent requirements in Justice Marshall's opinion in Ford, the Tennessee Supreme Court emphasize[d] that the strictures of due process must be observed at the hearing. Id. at 271. A prisoner must be given notice that an evidentiary hearing will be held and must be afforded an opportunity to be heard and to present evidence relevant to the issue of competency at an adversarial proceeding at which the prisoner is entitled to cross-examine the State's witnesses. Id. In order to satisfy Justice Marshall's determination that a prisoner should not be barred from presenting relevant material for the factfinder's consideration, the court stated that the rules of evidence should not be applied to limit the admissibility of reliable evidence that is relevant to the issue of the prisoner's competency. Id. 13 After the hearing, the trial court must file an order with detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law granting or denying the prisoner's Ford petition. The Tennessee Supreme Court concluded that a prisoner's competency to be executed is a question of fact and therefore the trial court must in its findings of fact set out any undisputed facts, explain its assessment of the credibility of the various expert witnesses and their conflicting opinions, and include findings as to the prisoner's behavior during the hearing. Id. The Tennessee Supreme Court automatically reviews the trial court's competency determination, which as an issue of fact is presumed correct unless the evidence in the record preponderates against the finding. Id. at 272. If a prisoner is found competent to be executed, he will not be allowed to bring a subsequent Ford claim unless he provides to the Tennessee Supreme Court 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. Id. 14 In setting forth the procedures for handling a Ford claim, the Tennessee Supreme Court properly followed the narrow concurring opinion of Justice Powell in establishing the standard for competency to be executed and by placing the burden of proof on the prisoner to make a threshold showing of incompetence for a hearing. The court then chose to implement the views in the opinion of Justice Marshall, which argued for more procedural protectionsthan Justice Powell's opinion, to mandate an adversarial hearing in which the prisoner is able to present all relevant material regarding his competency and to cross-examine the state's expert witnesses. Therefore, the procedures identified in Van Tran are generally adequate to protect a prisoner's right to a fair hearing of his Ford competency claim as required by due process. To the extent that Coe challenges specific aspects of the Van Tran procedures, we discuss them below in Part II.C.