Opinion ID: 1058311
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 37

Heading: and XXII. Testimony of Rev. Joe Ingle, Mary Ann Hea, and Ron Lax at Competency Hearing

Text: At the competency hearing, appellant sought to introduce the testimony of Reverend Joe Ingle, Mary Ann Hea, and Ron Lax. He asserts that these three witnesses would have testified as to appellant's incompetency to stand trial. Appellant contends that the information possessed by these witnesses is absolutely critical to a fair determination of his competency to stand trial. Rev. Ingle was not allowed to testify because appellant refused to waive the priest/parishioner privilege. Defense counsel withdrew witnesses Hea and Lax because the court ruled that it would permit wide open cross-examination as to each of these witnesses on matters relevant to competency, even though defense counsel requested that the cross-examination of these witnesses be limited because they each worked with appellant's defense team in connection with appellant's Davidson County cases. The court determined that because these witnesses were part of appellant's defense team, appellant would be required to waive the attorney/client privilege. Appellant refused to waive his privileges. Rev. Joe Ingle, appellant's minister, was prepared to testify that he had visited and counseled hundreds of mentally ill prisoners over the past twenty-five years, and appellant was the most mentally ill prisoner he had ever counseled. Rev. Ingle had spent more time with appellant than all of the expert witnesses combined. Appellant contends that, although Rev. Ingle is not a trained psychiatrist or psychologist, his lay perceptions of appellant mirror those offered by Drs. Auble and Amador, which is highly significant. In the affidavit offered by Rev. Ingle, he states that appellant is obsessed with the desire to be normal. When he was able to break through appellant's mask of normalcy and get him to reveal his true thoughts, he found appellant's thinking bizarre and delusional. Appellant advised Rev. Ingle that he is being set up by the government. Appellant further contends that Rev. Ingle's testimony would have provided a disinterested perspective on his mental health that could have rehabilitated the defense experts. Mary Ann Hea is a social worker employed by the Davidson County Public Defender's Office. Hea would have testified to the substance of her many interviews with appellant. The trial court held that because Hea was employed by the public defender's office, she stood in the same position as an attorney. Thereafter, defense counsel excused Ms. Hea as a witness. Appellant also sought to call Ron Lax as a witness at the competency hearing. Mr. Lax is a defense investigator involved in appellant's McDonald's murders case in Davidson County. The defense sought to question Lax based upon two interviews with appellant during June 1999, and counsel requested that the court limit the State's cross-examination of Lax to these two interviews. The trial court denied the request, ruling that on cross-examination the State would be entitled to ask Lax about all of the interviews he had conducted with appellant, and the State would be able to discover all of Lax's reports of these interviews as Jenks material. As a result, the defense did not offer Lax as a witness. Appellant acknowledges that Tennessee follows the wide-open approach to cross-examination but argues that cross-examination is limited to questions that are designed to elicit relevant evidence. See State v. Adkisson, 899 S.W.2d 626, 645 (Tenn.Crim.App.1994). Appellant asserts that because the defense experts testified that appellant was competent to stand trial until the late spring or early summer 1999, appellant's competency to that point was not at issue, and the State should have been limited to questioning Lax as to his interviews of appellant following the appellant's deteriorated state only. Otherwise, the trial court was authorizing the State to delve into wholly irrelevant matters in its cross-examination. The State counters that it should have been provided the opportunity to cross-examine the witness with regard to his conversations and interactions with the appellant touching on his competency and incompetency. Tennessee Rule of Evidence 611(b) provides that the scope of cross-examination extends to any matter relevant to any issue in the case, including credibility. Because appellant's competency was at issue, conversations and interactions Lax had with appellant prior to his determination that appellant was no longer competent would be relevant. The differences in appellant's actions and statements in his prior interviews and the June 1999 interviews would be relevant, and they would certainly be an area ripe for cross-examination. Mr. Lax certainly made his determination as to appellant's competency based upon his relationship and involvement in appellant's case over the two year period he worked with appellant, rather than solely on the two June 1999 interviews. This court determines that the trial court did not abuse its discretion with regard to this ruling. As for witnesses Hea and Ingle, appellant asserts that a criminal defendant has a due process right to call witnesses on his own behalf. Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 23, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1976). Appellant then asserts that the trial court's rulings with respect to these witnesses impinged upon [his] right to present a defense to an unconstitutional degree and cites Knight v. Dugger, 863 F.2d 705, 725-29 (11th Cir.1988). Appellant further contends that the trial court erred when it invoked mere evidentiary privileges to deny, or at least diminish, his right to call witnesses to support his claim of competency. The issue of the appropriate burden in establishing competency is of manifest importance to the issue of whether the trial court erred in allowing appellant to assert his privileges. Appellant contends that the trial court's rulings as to Ingle and Hea are incorrect because appellant was presumed to be incompetent at the hearing and, therefore, did not have the ability to assert or waive either the priest/parishioner privilege or the attorney/client privilege. The appellant relies upon the 1911 Tennessee Supreme Court case of Jordan v. State, 124 Tenn. 81, 135 S.W. 327, 329 (1911), and the case of State v. Black, 815 S.W.2d 166, 174 (Tenn.1991), for the proposition that the State bears the burden of proving a defendant's competence to stand trial once the issue of competency is raised. It is the appellant's position that, once competency is raised, a criminal defendant is presumed incompetent until the State proves otherwise. The State, however, asserts that the burden is on the criminal defendant to establish his incompetency to stand trial by a preponderance of the evidence and relies on United States v. Shepard, 538 F.2d 107, 110 (6th Cir.1976), and State v. Oody, 823 S.W.2d 554, 559 (Tenn.Crim.App.1991). The trial court asserted in its memorandum opinion on the motion for new trial that the law on the burden of proof is unclear. Appellant asserts that the supreme court cases of Jordan and Black place the burden of proof on the State by approving jury instructions that placed the burden on the State. Appellant submits that because the supreme court is the highest court in the state, the court of criminal appeals' decision in Oody is of no consequence. This Court determines that, based on Oody , the burden of proof at a competency hearing rests on the criminal defendant to establish incompetency to stand trial by a preponderance of the evidence. Appellant's reliance on Black and Jordan is misplaced. Jordan did not hold simply that the burden was on the State to prove competency by a preponderance of the evidence as argued by appellant. Rather, Jordan adopted a shifting of the burden when it found that the following jury charge was in all things correct. Jordan, 135 S.W. at 329. The law presumes that all persons are of sound mind until the contrary is made to appear. When, therefore, any person charged with a criminal offense punishable by death or imprisonment pleads insanity, as in this case, and presents evidence establishing or tending to establish the said plea, which evidence is sufficient to rebut and overturn the presumption of sanity, then it must be made to appear to your satisfaction from all the evidence that the defendant is of sufficient mental capacity to give sane advice to his counsel involving the charge in the indictment. Id. at 328 (emphasis added). This charge does not support appellant's contention that once the issue of competency is raised, the burden is on the State the prove competency. Instead, Jordan requires a shifting of the burden whereby the defendant must first present evidence establishing incompetency, rebutting and overturning the presumption of competency. If the presumption of competency is sufficiently rebutted, then the burden shifts to the State. Further, the mere reference of a trial court's statement in Black that the burden of proof was on the State to prove competency does not relegate that statement to the law in Tennessee. The holding in Black , relevant to the competency issue, was a determination that the criminal defendant in that case was competent to stand trial under the standards enunciated in the cases of Duskey, Mackey, and Benton, not who bore the burden at the competency hearing. Black, 815 S.W.2d at 173-75. Moreover, three months after the supreme court's decision in Black , the Tennessee Supreme Court declined to grant permission to appeal in Oody and has not since addressed this issue. Because appellant is presumed competent at the hearing, appellant had the right to assert his privileges, which prevented the witnesses at issue from testifying. This Court concludes that there was no error in the trial court's rulings on this issue.