Court Opinion

ID: 9741604
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:59:04.255509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:24.967097
License: Public Domain

MATHIAS, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the majority's decision to affirm the trial court, but believe that our current criminal justice procedures are inadequate to consider and resolve issues presented by defendants suffering from long-term or permanent mental illness. I write separately to highlight the issues raised in this case regarding the dismissal of charges against a defendant who has been civilly committed because he is mentally incompetent to stand trial.
The psychiatrists in this case uniformly determined that Habibzadah was not com*370petent to assist in his own defense.2 However, one of the two psychiatrists testified that the chances that Habibzadah would be restored to competency were less than fifty percent based on the level of improvement shown after being committed. Tr. pp. 19-20. The testimony of this psychiatrist provides the basis for the majority's decision that Habibzadah has not established that he will never be restored to competency.
In State v. Davis, 898 N.E.2d 281, 290 (Ind.2008), our supreme court determined:
Because Davis' pretrial confinement has extended beyond the maximum period of any sentence the trial court can impose, and because the State has advanced no argument that its interest outweigh Davis' substantial liberty interest, we conclude it is a violation of basic notions of fundamental fairness as embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to hold criminal charges over the head of Davis, an incompetent defendant, when it is apparent she will never be able to stand trial.
The issue left untouched in Davis is what happens to charges filed against a defendant who has not yet been civilly committed for the full length of the maximum sentence allowed under the charges against him or her but who is considered mentally incompetent without a chance of recovering competence. Mental health diagnoses are imprecise at best. The difference between indeterminate civil commitment with the underlying charges dismissed and continued pending of charges during that commitment is the word "never," or words to that effect, in a psychiatrist's report.3 In Davis, our supreme court was presented with facts that allowed them to easily dispense with the case based on the length of pre-trial confinement, rather than on an in-depth analysis of the effect of the defendant's competency on the dismissal of charges.
A large and ironic lapse in the logic of our criminal justice system is that its initial imperative is to determine the competency of defendants prospectively, to assist counsel at trial. And the courts can determine whether the defendant is able to assist in his or her own defense at any time, whether relatively soon after arrest, or long thereafter, sometimes years after arrest. Only after a defendant is determined competent is the issue of competency at the time of the crime raised, and only along with the trial of the facts of the offense alleged.
The problem arises that if a defendant is not competent to assist in his or her own defense, under our current system, the defendant will never be able to go to trial and present evidence relating to his or her culpability at the time of the crime. Without more guidance, Davis requires that an incompetent defendant be civilly committed for the maximum sentence allowed under the crimes he or she was charged with unless he or she becomes competent to stand trial during that time period. Hypothetically, an incompetent defendant charged with murder could be held for life if that defendant never regained competency to stand trial for the crime allegedly committed. Even more troublesome is the *371possibility of a defendant who regains competency during civil commitment over a period of decades. It is quite likely that such a person will have no memory of the crime charged and be horrified upon learning of it. Even worse, that defendant might then be convicted for the underlying crime, in part because his demeanor is now that of a competent person.
Habibzadah does not have the benefit of a psychiatrist's statement that he will never return to competence. One can wonder whether a psychiatrist's statement that a defendant has a five, ten or twenty percent chanee of returning to competency would preclude the release to civil commitment and dismissal of criminal charges under Davis. In this case, a less than fifty percent chance that Habibzadah would be returned to competence prevented the dismissal of charges. Habibzadah is charged with a Class A felony that carries a maximum sentence of fifty years. Under Davis, the time frame for determining a return to competency for Habibzadah is therefore fifty years, during which time Habibzadah will be civilly committed. Every year that Habibzadah is held, the evidence grows stale and the memories both of witnesses and of the mentally handicapped Habibzadah dim.
Our eriminal justice system has a mechanism to deal with temporary incompetence as it pertains to criminal eulpability, or scienter, but fails miserably when faced with the likely long-term or permanent mental illness of a eriminal defendant. Even Davis acknowledges that confinement of an incompetent person may be a violation of due process, but only after the defendant has been civilly committed for the maximum sentence allowed under the charges filed, when the State does not have an interest that outweighs the defendant's liberty interest.
Our criminal justice system needs an earlier and intervening procedure to determine competency retroactively to the time of the alleged crime. Perhaps we as a society need to consider the concept of a defendant being unchargeable because of mental illness under Indiana Code section 35-41-3-6, and not just guilty but mentally ill under Indiana Code section 35-86-2-1, et. seq. In either case, the commitment proceedings provided for in Indiana Code section 35-86-2-4 would both protect society and best care for the defendant involved.
Whether such a procedure is promulgated by the Indiana Supreme Court through its rule-making process or by the Indiana General Assembly through statute, it is time for the truly long-term, incompetent criminal defendant to have an earlier and intervening opportunity for a determination of his or her competency at the time of the crime alleged. Such a procedure convened soon after arrest, rather than years later when stale evidence and dim or non-existent memories are all that are left, or never, would best serve society and the defendant.

. One of the psychiatrists who examined Ha-bibzadah initially believed that he was not competent, but later determined that Habib-zadah was "malingering." I would note that if the charges were dismissed based on a fraudulent determination of incompetency, the State would be well within its rights to seek to reopen the case based on the fraud perpetrated upon the court by the defendant.

. The defendant in Davis also received a psychiatrist's determination that she would never return to competence. Davis, 898 N.E.2d at 284.