Opinion ID: 1340542
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: duration of incompetency: walker's commitment standards

Text: A person who has been accused of a crime may not be committed involuntarily to a mental institution for an indefinite period of time solely for the purpose of determining and obtaining such person's competency to stand trial. [2] Instead, after a reasonable period of time to determine the accused's competency to stand trial, and if incompetency is found, after a further reasonable period of time for the accused to attain such competency, the State, to satisfy equal protection and procedural due process requirements, must release the accused from confinement in the mental institution or commence civil commitment proceedings. In the civil commitment proceedings the State must show by clear, cogent and convincing evidence that the accused, like a person not accused of a crime, is likely to cause serious harm to himself or to others and should, therefore, be committed to a mental institution because of such propensity to do harm. In State ex rel. Walker v. Jenkins, 157 W. Va. 683, 203 S.E.2d 353 (1974), relying upon Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715, 92 S.Ct. 1845, 32 L.Ed.2d 435 (1972), this Court expressed these principles in syllabus points 1, 3 and 4: 1. Except to the extent that the State is entitled summarily to commit an individual charged with a crime for a reasonable time for the purpose of determining his capacity to stand trial, and to continue his commitment for a further reasonable period of time for the purpose of restoring his competency to stand trial, Chapter 62, Article 3, Section 9, as amended, and Chapter 27, Article 6, Section 8, as amended, of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, are unconstitutional. 3. Regardless of prior criminal violations, a person who has not been convicted of a crime cannot be involuntarily committed to a mental institution except for the purpose of determining competency to stand trial or to restore competency to stand trial, unless the State can demonstrate that he is either dangerous to himself or dangerous to others by evidence which is clear, cogent, and convincing. 4. Persons held for longer than a reasonable time pursuant to Chapter 62, Article 3, Section 9 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, must either be committed under the civil commitment statutes or released. Until the legislature spoke to the subject, this Court held in Walker that a period of confinement in excess of 60 days for the purpose of determining competency, or a period of confinement in excess of six months for the purpose of causing a defendant to regain competency, is prima facie unreasonable. 157 W. Va. at 689, 203 S.E.2d at 357. Thus, under Walker the maximum period that a criminal defendant could be properly committed involuntarily to a mental institution solely on account of the defendant's incompetency to stand trial was, ordinarily, eight months. W.Va.Code, 62-3-9 was repealed and replaced by W.Va.Code, 27-6A-1 to 27-6A-8, effective July 1, 1974. See 1974 W. Va. Acts, ch. 66. Under W.Va.Code, 27-6A-1(b), there is a twenty-day observation period to determine competency to stand trial, which period may be extended to a fortyday period. Under W.Va.Code, 27-6A-2(b), if incompetency is found, there is a six-month improvement period to attain competency, if the court finds in advance that there is a substantial likelihood of attaining competency during the six-month period, which improvement period may be extended to a nine-month period. Thus, under these statutes the maximum period that a criminal defendant may be committed involuntarily to a mental institution solely on account of the defendant's incompetency to stand trial is ten and one-third months. In this case the defendant was committed involuntarily to a state mental hospital, pending his attaining competency to stand trial, without interruption for the one-year period between February, 1971 and February, 1972. This one-year period was prima facie unreasonably long under Walker, supra, and the State has not shown on this record that commitment of the defendant at that time for more than eight months, in light of the then chronic nature of his psychosis, was justified by progress toward attaining competency. Moreover, this one-year commitment period exceeded the maximum period of ten and one-third months allowed under W.Va. Code, 27-6A-1 and 27-6A-2, as amended. In Walker, supra, the criminal defendant had been confined in the state mental hospital under former W.Va.Code, 62-3-9 for about 11 months and was still confined there as incompetent to stand trial when we decided the case. This Court granted his request for habeas corpus relief but stayed his discharge, or release from custody, for 60 days to allow the State to exercise its discretion as to whether to institute civil commitment proceedings. The opinion is silent on whether further criminal prosecution was barred, for civil commitment for life was likely. The unusual facts of the case presently before us, however, require a decision on whether pending felony charges must be dismissed and further prosecution on the same forever barred once it has been determined, as here, that the defendant had been committed to a mental institution, solely on account of incompetency to stand trial, for an excessive period of time. In this case, the defendant is not currently confined in a state mental hospital. Having been found, in 1980, to be competent to stand trial, he is currently confined in the Logan County jail, awaiting a new trial after our reversal of his conviction based upon ineffective assistance of counsel. The most recent psychiatric reports, filed after reversal of his conviction, indicate that he is competent to stand trial. [3]