Opinion ID: 1291295
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Burden of Proof as to Restoration of Competency

Text: On May 9, 1990, the trial court found, pursuant to section 1368, that defendant was incompetent to stand trial because he was unable rationally to assist his attorney in the conduct of his defense. Defendant had reported auditory hallucinations and demonstrated paranoid thinking about his case, counsel, and court personnel. Criminal proceedings were suspended and defendant placed in the state hospital for treatment. On February 4, 1991, the trial court announced it had received a certificate of restoration of competency (§ 1372, subd. (a)(1)) from the Department of Mental Health. According to a report accompanying the certificate of restoration, the hospital's treatment team had evaluated defendant as an unsophisticated sociopath with no major mental illness, and recommended he be returned to court as trial competent on psychotropic medications. Another report found defendant presents as restored to trial competency and could choose to cooperate rationally with counsel or might choose to act out in court. At defense request, defendant was reexamined by three additional experts. On May 31, 1991, defense counsel stated he wished to submit on the doctors' letters the question of [defendant's] competency to go to trial. The prosecutor did the same. The trial court then ruled as follows: In light of that, the court adopts the findings of the Department of Mental Health, and finds that in fact the defendant has regained his present competency to stand trial. Section 1369 sets out the procedures applicable in a trial by court or jury of the question of mental competence. Subdivision (f) of the statute provides, among other things, that competence is presumed unless it is proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant is mentally incompetent. Section 1372 sets out procedures to be followed upon restoration of competence. Although the statute does not expressly provide for a trial or hearing on competence if the question of restoration is contested, it does at one point refer to such a hearing, requiring that certain mental health officials be given notice of the date of any hearing on the defendant's competence and whether or not the defendant was found by the court to have recovered competence. (§ 1372, subd. (c).) In People v. Mixon (1990) 225 Cal. App.3d 1471, 1478-1485, 275 Cal.Rptr. 817 ( Mixon ), the Court of Appeal held that a defendant certified as competent and returned to court is entitled to a hearing on the issue if it is contested and that, in such a hearing, the presumption of competence and corresponding allocation of the burden of proof on competence, set out in section 1369, subdivision (f), applies. This court has neither approved nor disapproved Mixon's holding. Defendant contends that Mixon was wrong in applying the presumption of competence to a restoration hearing, that the trial court must be assumed to have followed Mixon as the only outstanding authority on this point, and that the assumed error is reversible per se. We need not decide in this case whether Mixon properly applied a presumption of competence in a hearing on restoration of competence, because nothing in the record suggests the trial court applied any presumption at all in adopting the findings of the Department of Mental Health. The report from that department was unequivocal in finding defendant competent as medicated. Despite having obtained additional expert examinations, defense counsel presented no evidence or argument to controvert those findings. On such a factual record we will not assume the trial court's decision was dependent on any presumption affecting the burden of proof, whether correct or erroneous, for when evidence is both sufficient to establish a point and completely uncontroverted, questions regarding the effect of allocating the burden of proof simply do not arise. (See Medina v. California (1992) 505 U.S. 437, 449, 112 S.Ct. 2572, 120 L.Ed.2d 353 [Under California law, the allocation of the burden of proof to the defendant will affect competency determinations only in a narrow class of cases where the evidence is in equipoise....].) In other words, a theoretically erroneous allocation of the burden could not, in these circumstances, be prejudicial, as under either allocation the court could not do anything but find the substantial and uncontested evidence of competency predominated. [2]