Opinion ID: 1577932
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Claim of Incompetence to Enter Guilty Plea

Text: Having determined that Carneal's RCr 11.42 motion is untimely, and that insufficient evidence has been presented to toll the three-year statute of limitations, we now must determine if the record establishes that the facts upon which the claim is predicated were unknown to the movant and could not have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence[.] RCr 11.42(10)(a). Carneal argues that he was mentally incompetent at the time of the guilty plea, and that this fact was unknown to him until he was evaluated in 2004 by Dr. Cornell and Dr. Schetky. The pertinent question is whether the facts presented in the reports (i.e., the recent revelation that he was incompetent to plead guilty) were unknown to Carneal and could not have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence. The trial court found that the claims were refuted by the record and declined to hold an evidentiary hearing. When an RCr 11.42 motion is denied without a hearing, this Court must determine whether there is a material issue of fact that cannot be conclusively resolved, i.e., conclusively proved or disproved, by an examination of the record. Fraser v. Commonwealth, 59 S.W.3d 448, 452 (Ky.2001). An evidentiary hearing was unnecessary, as the record does not support a finding that the facts underlying this motion were unknown to Carneal or could not have been ascertained during the statutory time period. Carneal was aware of a mental deficiency at the time of his guilty plea; indeed, he pled guilty but mentally ill to all nine charges. Carneal avoided trial for the express purpose of receiving mental health treatment as soon as possible. Dr. Cornell and Dr. Schetky diagnosed Carneal with schizotypal personality disorder in 1998. While this condition is less severe than their current diagnosis of schizophrenia, it is nonetheless a very grave diagnosis for a fifteen-year-old and certainly put Carneal on notice of his mental condition. In fact, as early as 1999, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia by his attending psychiatrist and began pharmaceutical therapy for his condition at that time. Considering the numerous sources informing Carneal of his mental condition, we cannot conclude that any alleged incompetence was unknown to Carneal or could not have been ascertained through the exercise of due diligence. Nonetheless, Carneal insists that the true severity of his mental condition was undiscoverable because he was unable to reveal important aspects of it until recently. This argument is a conceptual Catch-22. The claim that he was unable to ascertain that he was incompetent to plead guilty rests solely on his own disclosures about his own thought processes. Common sense disfavors the conclusion that one's own memories and thoughts are not ascertainable by oneself, except in an extreme circumstance such as a prolonged coma. Carneal has not presented such circumstances. Increased medication has improved his perception of reality and has permitted him to gain some level of personal control over a very debilitating and severe mental condition. This deeper insight, however, does not constitute a fact which was unknown to Carneal, or a fact which he was unable to ascertain prior to 2001. For us to interpret information previously suppressed in Carneal's mind as unknown facts under RCr 11.42(10)(a) would set an explosive precedent. Therefore, his RCr 11.42 motion was untimely.