Court Opinion

ID: 9587339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:21:12.123349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:21.256268
License: Public Domain

CARLEY, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I fully concur in Divisions 1 through 3 of the majority opinion. With respect to the issue of Traylor’s competency to stand trial, addressed in Division 4, I agree with the holding of Subdivision (a) that, on motion for new trial, he failed to show a violation of procedural due process. In Subdivision (b), however, the issue of a post-conviction substantive due process claim of incompetency is addressed for the first time in this state. There, the majority relies on the misguided criticism by a federal court of the accepted procedure regarding the resolution of such claims, which criticism has never been followed or even repeated by any other appellate court, as authority to reverse and remand with direction that the trial court determine Traylor’s competency. Because the effect of today’s decision is to encourage criminal defendants to raise belated claims of their incompetence and to frustrate the timely administration of justice in this state, I dissent.
Neither the Supreme Court of the United States nor this Court has ever previously recognized a substantive due process competency claim. Compare Baker v. State, 250 Ga. 187, 190-192 (1) (297 SE2d 9) (1982) (procedural due process). Thus, the bench and bar of Georgia would expect the majority opinion to discuss the supporting precedent and rationale for such a claim. That discussion is absent. Nevertheless, for the limited purposes of this opinion, I will assume that a separate post-conviction substantive due process claim is available in this state. See People v. Tenner, 794 NE2d 238, 247 (Ill. 2003).
Many federal courts and some state courts have recognized that, after conviction, a substantive due process claim of incompetence to stand trial may be viable. However, the universal rule in those courts is that, to demonstrate entitlement to a hearing, the convicted person must make a preliminary showing by clear and convincing evidence of a real, substantial, and legitimate doubt regarding his competence at the time of trial. Nicks v. State, 783 S2d 895, 908-909 (II) (Ala. Crim. App. 1999); Yackle, Postconviction Remedies § 133 (2005) (citing Walker v. Gibson, 228 F3d 1217 (10th Cir. 2000)). Indeed, the very opinion on which the majority relies adheres to such precedent. James v. Singletary, 957 F2d 1562, 1572-1573 (III) (C) (11th Cir. 1992). The majority does not cite, and I have been unable to locate, any contrary authority from any jurisdiction.
In choosing to deviate from that universal procedure, the majority relies on James v. Singletary, supra at 1574 (III) (C), fn. 17, *410wherein Chief Judge Tjoflat, writing for a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals, criticized, but ultimately followed, that procedure. However, the majority fails to acknowledge that Chief Judge Tjoflat’s criticism of the standard procedure is predicated upon a completely erroneous conclusion that, in an evidentiary hearing on a procedural claim, unlike a substantive one, the State is constitutionally required to bear the burden of proving competency. As other courts have implicitly noted, that glaring mistake in James soon became obvious when, in Medina v. California, 505 U. S. 437 (112 SC 2572, 120 LE2d 353) (1992), the Supreme Court “held that a state may constitutionally place the burden of proof on a defendant at a competency hearing.” Moran v. Godinez, 40 F3d 1567, 1573 (9thCir. 1994). The majority itself recognizes that, in this state, the defendant always bears the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence in a competency hearing. Lewis v. State, 279 Ga. 69, 70 (3) (608 SE2d 602) (2005). However, it nevertheless chooses to rely upon erroneous dicta in non-controlling federal authority, rather than on the previous decisions of this Court.
When the import of Medina and Lewis is carefully considered, the majority’s analysis utterly collapses. Neither the burden nor the standard of proof in evidentiary competency hearings furnishes any distinction between procedural and substantive due process claims. Today’s holding has obliterated the only remaining viable distinction, which is in the nature and extent of the initial proffer necessary to obtain an evidentiary hearing. This Court has now become the only court in the nation to eliminate the requirement that the convicted person make a “clear and convincing” preliminary showing of a “substantial doubt” to warrant a post-conviction competency hearing as a matter of substantive due process, and has apparently pressed even farther into untrod territory and entirely abolished the requirement that he or she make any initial proffer whatsoever. The effect of this wholly unsupported ruling is to delay resolution of the issue of competence to stand trial for an indeterminate time without consequence, and to compel the holding of an evidentiary hearing even during or subsequent to appellate proceedings, regardless of whether there is or ever was any reason to doubt the defendant’s competence. While purporting to distinguish between substantive and procedural due process competency claims, the majority has actually destroyed the distinction and simultaneously removed all incentive for a timely, non-belated determination of a defendant’s competence to stand trial.
In this case, assuming that a distinct substantive due process competency claim is available in Georgia, both the applicable law and the evidence authorized the trial court to find that an evidentiary hearing was unwarranted because there was not clear and convincing evidence of substantial doubt as to competency.
*411Decided March 13, 2006
Reconsideration denied April 13, 2006.
Gerard B. Kleinrock, for appellant.
Gwendolyn Keyes Fleming, District Attorney, BarbaraB. Conroy, Assistant District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Vonnetta L. Benjamin, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
This standard of proof is high; and “the facts must positively, unequivocally, and clearly generate the legitimate doubt.” [Cit.] “A [trial] court’s determination that there is insufficient evidence to generate a substantial and legitimate doubt as to ... competence to stand trial is reviewed for clear error.” [Cit.]
Battle v. United States, 419 F3d 1292, 1299 (I) (11th Cir. 2005). Accordingly, I dissent to Division 4 (b) of the majority’s opinion and to that portion of this Court’s judgment which reverses and remands with direction.
I am authorized to state that Justice Thompson and Justice Melton join in this dissent.