Court Opinion

ID: 9533467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:32:00.21786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:03.763902
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I concur in the judgment.
In People v. Medina (1990) 51 Cal.3d 870 [274 Cal.Rptr. 849, 799 P.2d 1282], I would have reversed the judgment. I was of the opinion that the determination by a jury therein that defendant was mentally competent could not stand without offense to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution because the statutory scheme codified in section 1367 et seq. of the Penal Code was fundamentally flawed in its allocation to defendant of the burden to prove his own incompetence pursuant to subdivision (f) of section 1369. (People v. Medina, supra, 51 Cal.3d at pp. 913-914 (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.).)
In this cause, I cannot embrace the same disposition. To be sure, there is the same jury determination of mental competence under the same statutory scheme. But in Medina v. California (1992) 505 U.S. 437, 442-453 [120 L.Ed.2d 353, 361-362, 112 S.Ct. 2572], affirming People v. Medina, supra, 51 Cal.3d 870, a majority of the United States Supreme Court rejected my view that the allocation of the burden of proof violated due process. Under the compulsion of their authority—but not by the force of their reasoning—I yield.
In conclusion, because I find no reversible error or other defect, I join in affirmance.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied January 24, 1996, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above.