Opinion ID: 410418
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Existence of a Bona Fide Doubt

Text: 27 Even assuming Pate to be applicable to this case, the evidence presented to the trial court did not raise a bona fide doubt as to Rivers' competency at trial. Initially, the respondents' claim that the state courts' determination that there was no bona fide doubt as to Rivers' competency is a factual determination entitled to a presumption of correctness under Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539, 101 S.Ct. 764, 66 L.Ed.2d 722 (1981). However, issues of fact, as used in 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254(d), are basic, primary, or historical facts: facts 'in the sense of a recital of external events and the credibility of their narrators.'  Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 309 n. 6, 83 S.Ct. 745, 755 n. 6, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963) (quoting Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 506, 73 S.Ct. 397, 445, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1953) (opinion of Frankfurter, J.). The question of bona fide doubt is a conclusion of law, or at the least a mixed determination of law and fact. See Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162, 175, 95 S.Ct. 896, 905, 43 L.Ed.2d 103 (1975). 4 The state court's determination, therefore, is not entitled to the presumption of correctness under section 2254(d). 28 To establish a bona fide doubt of competency, a federal habeas petitioner seeking relief must show that there were matters known to the trial court 29 [t]hat raised at that time a real, substantial, and legitimate doubt as to the mental capacity of the petitioner to meaningfully participate and cooperate with counsel. The test is an objective one. The duty to hold a competency hearing turns not on what the trial judge in fact had in mind, but whether the facts before him were such as to create a reasonable doubt as to the defendant's competency. 30 Pedrero v. Wainwright, 590 F.2d 1383, 1387-88 (5th Cir.) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 943, 100 S.Ct. 299, 62 L.Ed.2d 310 (1979). The relevant factors to be considered in assessing the issue of competency are a defendant's irrational behavior, his demeanor at trial, and any prior medical opinion on competence to stand trial. Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162, 180, 95 S.Ct. 896, 908, 43 L.Ed.2d 103 (1975). Evidence establishing only one of these factors may nevertheless be sufficient to raise a bona fide doubt of incompetency. Id. 31 The only medical opinions on Rivers' competence to stand trial were those of Dr. Reifman on July 20, 1972, and on April 19, 1973. In both reports Dr. Reifman concluded that Rivers was competent to stand trial. Dr. Horecker's report six months after trial was limited to Rivers' competency to be sentenced. The district court totally dismissed Dr. Reifman's pre-trial report as being five months prior to trial, and refused to give any weight to both reports as being conclusory. The mere passage of several months from an examination to the time of trial or a plea does not totally undermine the merits of the opinion. See, e.g., Hoornweg v. Smith, 504 F.Supp. 1189, 1193 (W.D.N.Y.1981) (passage of one year from time of examination to time of plea). Moreover, the district court overlooked the fact that Dr. Reifman elaborated on the basis for all his reports in the April 9, 1974 hearing which was held before the trial court determined whether Rivers had demonstrated a bona fide doubt of incompetency at trial. The petitioner cannot now object to this testimony, not having done so before. The April 9 hearing was limited to Rivers' competency to be sentenced, and Rivers' cross-examination of Dr. Reifman was appropriately limited to that issue. Yet to the extent that the direct examination of Dr. Reifman went beyond those parameters, there were grounds for objection and a motion to strike, but not grounds for ignoring that testimony which is now before us as part of the record before the trial court. 32 As to Rivers' demeanor during trial, nothing occurred to evoke a bona fide doubt on the part of the court that Rivers was no longer competent to stand trial. A defense of insanity was withdrawn prior to trial. As the district court conceded, his behaviour at trial was a neutral factor. 522 F.Supp. at 446. The state trial court explicitly stated when first confronted with the issue in the February 23, 1974 post-trial hearing: 33 [I] have had no occasion to talk to Mr. Rivers, nor has he taken the stand in his own behalf, so I have not had the opportunity to observe his manner while participating in any conversation or in any conduct before the court other than to be present throughout the course of the trial. 34 The state appellate court explicitly found that [t]he record demonstrates that defendant performed no acts which could have reasonably caused the court to conclude: (1) that defendant was suffering from a mental disorder during his trial; and (2) that a mental disorder caused him to lose all recognition of the proceeding's nature and purpose, or prevented him from producing an appropriate defense. 61 Ill.App.3d at 384, 18 Ill.Dec. 609, 377 N.E.2d 1245. In sum, neither prior medical opinions or Rivers' demeanor at trial raised a bona fide doubt of Rivers' competency. 35 The petitioner relies solely on the remaining Drope factor, irrational behavior, for establishing a bona fide doubt. The petitioner persuaded the district court that a bona fide doubt of Rivers' competency at trial was raised by evidence which demonstrated only that Rivers was incompetent after trial. Rivers' troubled marital history on its face fails to demonstrate a bona fide doubt about his competency prior to or during trial. The commission of the crime itself was not sufficient to raise a bona fide doubt. See, e.g., Hoornweg v. Smith, 504 F.Supp. 1189, 1192 (W.D.N.Y.1981). Although the earliest of Rivers' letters referred to previous letters, there is no evidence in the record that any of the letters were sent during the trial or even prior to conviction. Although most of the letters were apparently destroyed, counsel had the opportunity by way of affidavit to give some approximation of when and how long the letters were sent, as well as any of his own doubts about Rivers' competency during trial. The only other evidence of allegedly irrational behavior in the Suggestions of Doubt of Competency of Accused was Rivers' disbelief in reaction to his counsel's explanation of the verdict and Rivers' representations to his family after he was found guilty that everything was alright. 36 Rivers asserts that evidence of irrational behavior occurring after trial is sufficient to raise a bona fide doubt of competency during trial. We disagree and find the cases cited by the petitioner to support his position to be distinguishable on their facts. In Osborne v. Thompson, 610 F.2d 461 (6th Cir.1979) (per curiam), the Sixth Circuit found a bona fide doubt of incompetency based on pre-trial evidence of incompetency, the petitioner's conduct during trial, and post-trial incidents. In Pride v. Estelle, 649 F.2d 324 (5th Cir.1981), the Fifth Circuit found a substantial doubt as to the defendant's competency-in-fact to have stood trial based on a post-trial medical opinion that the defendant was mentally defective and a paranoid schizophrenic, the opinion of two medical experts that the defendant was at that time incompetent and the opinion of one medical expert that the defendant was incompetent during his trial. In Kibert v. Peyton, 383 F.2d 566 (4th Cir.1967), testimony of witnesses about the defendant's behavior during trial as well as post-trial expert opinions were held sufficient to establish incompetency in fact. In Stone v. United States, 358 F.2d 503 (9th Cir.1966), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 961, 88 S.Ct. 341, 19 L.Ed.2d 370 (1967), involving a petition under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2255 (1976), post-trial expert opinions that the defendant was incompetent at the time of trial were unchallenged. The court specifically noted that it was dealing only with the hearing requirements of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 4244 and that the appellant was not contending that the trial court had before it sufficient evidence of defendant's incompetence to stand trial to render the court's failure to hold a competency hearing a violation of due process under Pate. In Beale v. United States, 317 F.Supp. 731 (N.D.Miss.1970), also arising under section 2255, the district court found the defendant to be incompetent in fact based on evidence of incompetency occurring prior to, during, and after trial. None of these cases hold that evidence which demonstrates only incompetency sometime after trial is sufficient in and of itself to raise a bona fide doubt of incompetency during trial. 5 37 Yet even if the evidence of incompetency after trial could have given rise to a bona fide doubt of incompetency during trial, the opposing evidence of competency at trial overcame any such doubt. The conclusion of both Dr. Reifman's pre-trial and post-trial determination 6 of Rivers' competency at trial was that Rivers was competent during trial. As the district court noted, there was certainly no reason for the trial court to doubt Rivers' competency before commencement of trial. Rivers had been found to be competent to stand trial by Dr. Reifman five months earlier, and no evidence was presented to the court to cause it to question that determination. No requests were made by Rivers' counsel, the state, or the court for further inquiry into Rivers' competency. We must assume that the attorneys for both sides, as well as the trial court itself, would have exercised their duty to raise the issue, as was done after trial, had any doubt surfaced as to Rivers' competence during trial. See Reese v. Wainwright, 600 F.2d 1085, 1094 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 983, 100 S.Ct. 487, 62 L.Ed.2d 410 (1979). 38 A significant factor upon which the district court did not remark was the failure of Rivers' counsel to raise any question of competency during trial. The petitioner urges that the nature of schizophrenia is such that he could have been suffering from the disease without manifesting symptoms cognizable by counsel. Mental illness, however, does not necessarily mean that a person is legally incompetent to stand trial. The standard for determining competency is whether the defendant has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding--and whether he has a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him. Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402, 80 S.Ct. 788, 4 L.Ed.2d 824 (1960) (per curiam). Counsel for a defendant, perhaps more than any other party or the court, is in a position to evaluate a defendant's ability to understand the proceedings and assist counsel with his defense. On the facts of this case, the failure of defendant or his counsel to raise the competency issue is persuasive evidence that there was no bona fide doubt as to Rivers' competency during the trial. See, e.g., Pedrero v. Wainwright, 590 F.2d 1383 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 943, 100 S.Ct. 299, 62 L.Ed.2d 310 (1979). 39 Indeed, the evidence of Rivers' alleged incompetency strongly suggests that Rivers' schizophrenic condition commenced in reaction to his conviction and not during the trial. Dr. Reifman testified that Rivers was suffering from a schizophrenic condition and that the schizophrenic symptoms did not appear until after the trial. In light of the indicia of competence before and during trial, Rivers' schizophrenia is more plausibly explained as the result of his conviction rather than the stress of the trial. See, e.g., Reese v. Wainwright, 600 F.2d 1085, 1094 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 983, 100 S.Ct. 487, 62 L.Ed.2d 410 (1979). The state appellate court found that the expert medical testimony established that defendant's schizophrenic reaction had developed subsequent to trial. 61 Ill.App.3d at 384, 18 Ill.Dec. 609, 377 N.E.2d 1245. This explicit finding of the state appellate court was apparently overlooked by the district court, because it concluded that no hearing would have been required if Dr. Reifman's subsequent examination had explained the probable time and cause of the onset of Rivers' later incompetency. 522 F.Supp. at 447. 40 No court can ascertain for a certainty whether defendant truly comprehended the nature and purpose of the proceedings against him. Procedural due process requires only that certain necessary procedural safeguards be provided to the defendant to ensure a fair evaluation of his competency when a bona fide doubt is raised. Our evaluation of a defendant's competency at trial is even more difficult on collateral review than in the context of a direct appeal. Whatever our resolution of this issue on direct appeal, some deference must be paid to the state courts' scrupulous efforts at providing Rivers a fair trial. As the Supreme Court recently noted, [f]ederal intrusions into state criminal trials frustrate both the States' sovereign power to punish offenders and their good faith attempts to honor constitutional rights. Engle v. Isaac, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 1571, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982). The equivocal evidence of alleged incompetency in this case, confined solely to incompetency after conviction and entry of judgment, is simply insufficient to find error of constitutional dimension in the trial court's failure to hold a competency hearing after trial. 41 The district court, in light of its issuance of the writ based on Rivers' first claim, failed to evaluate the remaining claims of the petition and therefore they were not presented to this court on appeal. By way of guidance for further proceedings, we note that the standard of review for finding incompetency-in-fact as alleged in Rivers' second claim is at least as stringent as the bona fide doubt standard suggested in Pate. See Reese v. Wainwright, 600 F.2d 1085 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 983, 100 S.Ct. 487, 62 L.Ed.2d 410 (1979). Rivers' third and fourth claims are variations on Rivers' central argument that the post-trial procedures used by the state trial court were inadequate to determine his competency. The third claim is that Rivers should have been examined after the trial by a physician other than Dr. Reifman since he had an interest in reaffirming the results of his pre-trial examination of Rivers. The fourth claim is that Rivers should have been allowed to cross-examine Dr. Reifman on his opinions. In examining the merits of the third and fourth claims, the district court is directed to consider the applicability of the Supreme Court's recent opinions in Engle v. Isaac, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982) and United States v. Frady, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982) and this court's recent opinion in Norris v. United States, 687 F.2d 899 (7th Cir.1982), in determining whether these claims were adequately preserved in the state courts for purposes of collateral review. 7 42 Therefore, the judgment of the district court is reversed and the cause is remanded to the district court for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion. Upon remand, Circuit Rule 18 shall be applicable. 43 REVERSED AND REMANDED.