Opinion ID: 1136821
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: competency to assist counsel

Text: The State maintained below and the trial court agreed that the defendant was not entitled to a hearing on his competence to proceed and assist his counsel in postconviction proceedings. This Court has affirmed that ruling on the authority of Jackson v. State, 452 So.2d 533 (Fla.1984). However, the trial court accepted the State's suggestion that the court also conduct an evidentiary hearing on Medina's competency to proceed. Presumably because the State and the trial court were concerned that if this Court retreated from Jackson there would be further delay, the Court granted the State's request to hear the testimony of the mental health experts who had examined the defendant for the Governor. The problem is the defendant did not have his mental health experts available. Notwithstanding their absence, the trial court went forward and ruled the defendant competent based upon the testimony from the State's experts. In view of our adherence to Jackson that hearing is now meaningless. The danger the trial court faces on remand, however, is that it will not decide the competency to be executed issue on the basis of the evidence received at the hearing, but instead will be biased by reason of its earlier ruling, moot though it is, on the competency to proceed issue. Indeed, the State contended unsuccessfully here that the trial court's ruling moots the need for a further hearing on the competency to be executed issue: Because Medina failed to establish reasonable grounds, which he cannot do in the face of the finding by the Governor's commission that he is malingering, the trial court properly refused to grant a stay of execution and order additional proceedings. As the order makes clear, the trial court did not incorporate the evidence from the hearing on competence to proceed with the 3.850 motion because the Rule 3.811 standard is a threshold standard that Medina failed to meet. To the extent that further discussion is needed, it is sufficient to state that if Medina is competent under 3.211, and the court found that he is, then Medina is clearly competent for execution. Although I disagree with the majority's conclusion that Jackson is controlling, and would remand for a single full and fair evidentiary hearing on both competency issues, I write on this issue only to warn of the danger made evident by the State's unsuccessful argument on appeal. The trial court must be vigilant in this regard. We are not remanding for a useless exercise as claimed by the State, but for a fair judicial determination of competency as contemplated by rule 3.812. KOGAN, C.J., and SHAW, J., concur.