Opinion ID: 2567349
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Failure to instruct jury it could find defendant competent only if he would satisfy criteria for competency throughout capital trial

Text: Defendant contends that CALJIC No. 4.10, as given, was defective in that it failed to convey to the jury that a defendant must meet the criteria for competency for the duration of the capital proceedings. He argues the instruction permitted the jury to find him competent even if it believed he suffered from schizophrenia and might not have been able to maintain his competency throughout the entire trial. The asserted error was prejudicial, he maintains, because the record shows his condition waxed and waned, so that he was sometimes lucid but at other times psychotic. As the Attorney General points out, defendant asked the trial court to instruct the jury with CALJIC No. 4.10 and never requested a modification or clarification along these lines. The contention, therefore, is forfeited for appellate purposes. ( People v. Coffman and Marlow, supra, 34 Cal.4th at p. 122, 17 Cal.Rptr.3d 710, 96 P.3d 30.) In any event, the point lacks merit. To demand that the jury predict the course of defendant's competency throughout a capital trial of indeterminate length would be to insist on speculation. More important, as the Attorney General reasons, section 1368 provides for the institution of additional competency proceedings should a substantial change of circumstances or the emergence of new evidence cast doubt on the earlier finding of competency. Due process requires no more.