Opinion ID: 1946665
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Trial Court's Competency Ruling

Text: Upon this evidence the trial court found that there was no doubt that Mr. Wallace suffers some cognitive deficits, but that it was evident from the record that these impairments do not preclude him from the rational understanding of the charges and proceedings against him, nor do they preclude him from consulting with his lawyers. The court concluded that appellant is malingering and remains competent to stand trial in this case. Appellant accuses the trial court of look[ing] past the mountain of scientific evidence showing the [appellant's] incompetence and seiz[ing] upon a red herring: the prosecution's charges of `malingering'. . . . We are satisfied, however, that the trial judge did not ignore or overlook appellant's evidence of impairment. First, acknowledging the conflicting evidence, the court told the parties that this is a difficult difficult case. Second, explaining its finding that appellant was malingering, the trial court specifically relied on the testimony that, on one of the tests for malingering, appellant gave careless responses which invalidated the test results, and that even when an individual passes a malingering test it does not mean you do not have malingering. It just means they didn't choose to do it in a way that is detected in [the] test. Appellant emphasizes the evidence that he passed two tests designed to detect malingering and asserts that the court's finding that he was malingering cannot be squared with the evidence, but the trial judge's explanation identified evidence that, we agree, supports her conclusion. Third, the trial court's finding that appellant was competent to stand trial is not plainly contrary to the neurological evidence of appellant's impairment. The defense and prosecution experts agreed that cognitive impairment does not necessarily mean incompetence: Dr. Hyde acknowledged that an individual with organic brain damage can be competent, and Dr. Patterson testified that cognitive impairment and brain damage do not necessarily render someone incompetent to stand trial and that a person's having dementia does not mean that he is incompetent. Further, there was no consensus, even among defense experts, that appellant suffered from psychosis or any other mental illness. [18] Appellant suggests that the trial court should have given more weight to the competency determinations by doctors who saw appellant over the course of his several-month-long inpatient stays at St. Elizabeths than to the views of the doctors who saw appellant on fewer, more abbreviated occasions. However, in exercising her discretion, the trial judge was entitled to credit the view of the government's experts that those doctors simply got it wrong. [19] Cf. United States v. Chischilly, 30 F.3d 1144, 1150 (9th Cir.1994) ([t]o the extent that [the trial judge], from his courtroom observations, assigned more weight to the Government's expert than to the contrary, . . . he was acting within his discretion to do so as a part of his fact-finding and credibility-weighing functions.). In some instances, this court accords greater weight to the opinions and diagnoses of a treating physician than to the opinions of non-treating physicians who have been engaged to provide medical evaluations. See, e.g., Washington Metro. Area Transit Auth. v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 926 A.2d 140, 146 (D.C.2007) (noting that the law affords the diagnosis of a treating physician more weight than the conflicting opinion of a non-treating physician in a worker's compensation determination); Kralick v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 842 A.2d 705, 711 (D.C.2004) (same, citing case authority). However, with respect to competency determinations in criminal cases, neither this court nor others have required deference to treating physicians or to doctors who saw a defendant on multiple occasions as an inpatient. [20] Moreover, even if the trial court had given special weight to the views of appellant's treating physicians, no different result would have been required. None of the experts who testified at the competency hearing were appellant's treating physicians. But Dr. William Richie was one of appellant's treating psychiatrists at St. Elizabeths, and the St. Elizabeths discharge summary discussed at the competency hearing attributed to Dr. Richie the statement that appellant has [a] selective memory and is capable of dissimulating, fabricating, prevaricating and malingering cognitive disabilities in excess of his documented deficits. [21] And although other doctors who saw appellant on an inpatient basis at St. Elizabeths in 2002 and 2003 opined that he was unable to participate in court proceedings or to assist counsel with his defense, see supra note 14, experts appear to agree that an individual who is mentally incompetent to stand trial at one point in time may be competent to stand trial at a later time. For example, while Dr. Boss found appellant incompetent to participate in court proceedings in January 2002, she also commented that it may be useful for Mr. Wallace if defense counsel can spend even more time with him to go over the details of his cases and legal strategy. Multiple repetitions, in addition to frequent discussion, may help [him] recall what he needs to know in order to better inform his choices and ability to participate. See also Carmichael, 479 A.2d at 327 (noting that a doctor at St. Elizabeths had confirmed that Carmichael was incompetent to stand trial, but three months later this same doctor reported that the subject's mental condition had improved enough so that he was fit to stand trial). Notably, the record indicates that appellant did receive competency training while at St. Elizabeths. All of this is to say that even if the court had been required to accord special significance to the views of the St. Elizabeths doctors that appellant was incompetent to stand trial at the time the doctors expressed those views, deference to those doctors' views did not require the court to find that appellant was incompetent to stand trial in November 2003 or to enter a plea in January 2004. The trial court weighed the evidence and found that while . . . there is dementia and impairment, the evidence of malingering is far more powerful than the evidence of significant progressive deterioration. In essence, appellant's disagreement is with the weight the trial judge accorded to the conflicting expert opinions about competency. To disturb the trial court's findings, however, this court would have to re-weigh the evidence. That we may not do. Our case law is clear that when there is a plausible explanation presented by two competing groups of experts, the decision is one for the fact finder. See Jackson v. Condor Mgmt. Group, Inc., 587 A.2d 222, 225 (D.C.1991) (When a case turns on controverted facts and the credibility of witnesses, as this one does, it is peculiarly one for the [finder of fact]. The fact that some of the witnesses may be experts does not alter this rule. (internal citation omitted)). This principle applies with respect to expert medical testimony just as it does to other expert evidence. See Washington Metro. Area Transit Auth. v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 770 A.2d 965, 970 (D.C.2001) (In evaluating conflicting medical testimony, as in weighing evidence generally, the hearing examiner has wide latitude. The examiner is entitled to draw reasonable inferences from the evidence presented, and her decisions are especially weighty when they involve credibility determinations. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). And it applies with respect to competency hearings just as it does to other proceedings. See, e.g., Ray v. Duckworth, 881 F.2d 512, 516 (7th Cir. 1989) (holding that [b]ecause of the potential for divergent and often conflicting opinions on the issue of the defendant's competency, we must be careful to give due regard to the trial court's superior ability to draw the appropriate inferences from its observation of the defendant and expert witnesses, as well as the examination reports before it, and noting that the trial court was making a credibility determination when it chose to believe the expert opining that appellant was malingering). In this case, the trial court was presented with two permissible views of the evidence as to competency. . . . Villegas, 899 F.2d at 1341. [T]he court's choice between them cannot be deemed clearly erroneous. Id.; see also Izquierdo, 448 F.3d at 1278 (same). We can find no clear error in the court's November 2003 determination that appellant was competent to stand trial. Accordingly, appellant has not met the substantial burden he must meet to show that withdrawal of his plea was necessary to correct a manifest injustice. Williams v. United States, 595 A.2d 1003, 1006 (D.C.1991); see also Higgenbottom, 923 A.2d at 897 (We review a court's competency determination . . . for abuse of discretion, the exercise of which we will not lightly disturb. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).