Opinion ID: 1954225
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Mental Health Procedures Act

Text: In relevant part to this matter, the MHPA provides a statutory procedure for assessing a defendant's competency to stand trial. Section 7402(c) provides that the prosecution, the defense, or a warden may present to the court an application for an order directing an evaluation for the competency of a criminal defendant. Following the examination, the court appoints a psychiatrist, who then prepares a report and submits it to the court and to counsel. Section 7402(e). The MHPA contains specific rules concerning the conduct of the mental health examination, and provides the parameters for when it is to be used in a court proceeding. Id. In particular, the MHPA provides that the defendant is entitled to have counsel present and that [n]othing said or done by such person during the examination may be used as evidence against him in any criminal proceedings on any issue other than that of his mental condition. Section 7402(e)(3). The MHPA also provides that the defendant is entitled to the appointment of his own private psychiatrist to attend the examination, if the defendant has a substantial objection to the conclusions reached by the court-appointed psychiatrist. Section 7402(f). Breakiron asserts that counsel failed to employ the MHPA properly in that the court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Adamski, improperly conducted the examination and essentially gave him Miranda warnings during the August 1987 interview that were not in accordance with the MHPA. He then argues that, pursuant to the MHPA, he had some expectation of confidentiality, that he had a right to have trial counsel present, and that he had a right to a defense expert psychiatrist following his objection to Dr. Adamski's conduct. These errors, Breakiron asserts, prejudiced him because the effect was to deprive him of the opportunity to have a private psychiatrist testify as to his mental health and psychiatric history during both the guilt and sentencing phase of the trial. In reviewing the record in this matter, it appears that trial counsel did mishandle the competency evaluation in a number of respects. No counsel was present and following objection to Dr. Adamski's Miranda warnings, trial counsel did not request a private defense expert to be present at a second court ordered examination. Further, in reviewing the PCRA testimony of this matter, trial counsel was not able to articulate a reasonable basis for failing to comply with the MHPA. Thus, our determination in this matter hinges upon whether these errors were prejudicial to the defendant at either the guilt or the sentencing phase of the trial. We hold that they were not. Although Breakiron presents a persuasive argument that trial counsel had a basic misunderstanding of the MHPA, he is unable to articulate how he was prejudiced. Breakiron postulates that had an evaluation been performed in accordance with Section 7402, counsel may have chosen a different trial strategy. He surmises that trial counsel's failure to follow the MHPA left the attorney without any psychiatric evidence to assist in Breakiron's defense or to present mitigating evidence at trial. We find that Breakiron has not met his burden of establishing that counsel's errors prejudiced him because he cannot establish that had an examination been done according to the MHPA, the defense strategy, or the outcome of either the guilty verdict or sentence of death, would have changed. Instead, the PCRA proceedings show that Breakiron was competent at the time of trial, [10] and there was no evidence that trial counsel could have presented an insanity defense. Therefore, the only defense available to trial counsel was of diminished capacity, which was presented and rejected by the jury at trial. [11] Thus, the alleged errors, had they been corrected, would not have led to a different result, and we cannot find that Breakiron was prejudiced in the guilt phase of the trial. Likewise, while trial counsel in this matter might have mishandled Breakiron's mental health examination by not attending and by not requesting a private expert following the objections to Dr. Adamski, the outcome of the sentencing was not likely to have changed. The fact remains that the evaluation was ordered to assess Breakiron's competency to stand trial, and there is no real dispute that Breakiron was competent. Indeed, at the PCRA hearing, both Dr. Adamski and Breakiron's private psychiatrist testified, and neither opined that Breakiron was incompetent at the time of trial. We fail to see how trial counsel's alleged errors, where Breakiron was clearly competent to stand trial, had any bearing on the penalty phase of the trial. The MHPA provides for a private defense expert to attend the competency examination, but does not give Breakiron a right to a private psychiatrist during the penalty phase to present evidence of mitigating circumstances. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Christy, 540 Pa. 192, 656 A.2d 877, 887 (1995); Commonwealth v. Yarris, 519 Pa. 571, 549 A.2d 513 (1988). Breakiron has failed to establish that his counsel's mishandling of his competency examination prejudiced him, and we reject his claim and affirm the determination of PCRA's court.