Court Opinion

ID: 9745713
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 10:13:59.101956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:41.134591
License: Public Domain

Affirmed and Majority and Dissenting Opinions filed August 15, 2023.

                                      In The

                    Fourteenth Court of Appeals

                              NO. 14-21-00536-CR

                         DANSON TROTTI, Appellant
                                        V.
                       THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

                    On Appeal from the 178th District Court
                            Harris County, Texas
                        Trial Court Cause No. 1681046

                            DISSENTING OPINION

      Is lack of compliance with the mandatory provisions of the Code of Criminal
Procedure regarding competency, as required by federal due process, structural
error this court must address sua sponte?

      While appellant’s counsel does not raise the issue on appeal, appellant’s
competence was raised in the trial court. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art.
46B.004(a), (b) (“If evidence suggesting the defendant may be incompetent to
stand trial comes to the attention of the court, the court on its own motion shall
suggest that the defendant may be incompetent to stand trial.”). Here, appellant
attempted to commit suicide and had to be hospitalized. During an informal
inquiry, the trial court recognized evidence that appellant may be incompetent and
sua sponte ordered an evaluation. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 46B.005(a).

      After concluding there was some evidence of incompetency to warrant an
examination and receiving the expert report, the trial court had a duty, imposed by
the Code of Criminal Procedure, to hold a trial before determining whether the
defendant was incompetent to stand trial on the merits. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc.
Ann. art. 46B.005(b) (“Except as provided by Subsection (c), the court shall hold a
trial under Subchapter C before determining whether the defendant is incompetent
to stand trial on the merits.”); see also Code Construction Act, Tex. Gov’t Code
Ann. § 311.016(2) (“‘Shall’ imposes a duty.”). Although the trial court discussed
with the attorneys the results of appellant’s evaluation, the trial court never made a
ruling on appellant’s competence. Instead, the trial court admitted a medical report
suggesting appellant was competent, but the trial court did not make a factfinding
on the ultimate issue of appellant’s competency to stand trial.

      Some of our sister courts have concluded that if a trial court does not make a
ruling on competency, then the issue is not preserved for appellate review if
trial-court counsel does not object to the failure to hold a trial on competency. See
Tex. R. App. P. 33.1; see, e.g., Mapps v. State, 336 S.W.3d 700, 703 (Tex. App.—
Houston [1st Dist.] 2010, no pet.). But is compliance with Rule 33.1 necessary?

      The Supreme Court of the United States has held that “the conviction of an
accused person while he is legally incompetent violates due process . . . and that
state procedures must be adequate to protect this right.” Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S.
375, 378 (1966); see also Ex parte Hagans, 558 S.W.2d 457, 460 (Tex. Crim. App.
1977) (recognizing Pate). In Pate, as here, the prosecution argued that the

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defendant waived his rights by failing to demand a “hearing as provided by Illinois
law.” Pate, 383 U.S. at 384. However, in rejecting the argument, the Supreme
Court explained that it is “contradictory to argue that a defendant may be
incompetent, and yet knowingly or intelligently ‘waive’ his right to have the court
determine his capacity to stand trial.” Pate, 383 U.S. at 384; see generally McCoy
v. Louisiana, 138 S. Ct. 1500, 1511 (2018) (“An error may be ranked structural . . .
‘if the right at issue is not designed to protect the defendant from erroneous
conviction but instead protects some other interest,’ such as ‘the fundamental legal
principle that a defendant must be allowed to make his own choices about the
proper way to protect his own liberty.’” (quoting Weaver v. Massachusetts, 582
U.S. 286, 295 (2017))).

       Although it appears the court of criminal appeals has not yet engaged in a
Marin analysis with respect to the right to a competency determination, I believe
that this is a category-one right as it is “systemic” and therefore “essentially
independent of the litigants’ wishes”; therefore, it can neither be forfeited nor even
validly waived by the parties for appellate-review purposes. Proenza v. State, 541
S.W.3d 786, 792 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017) (discussing Marin v. State, 851 S.W.2d
275, 279 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993)). Following the Marin analysis, this right to a
competency determination is not subject to Rule 33.1 preservation. How can a
defendant waive a right or fail to preserve error as to a competency determination
if the defendant did not have capacity? Because agency lapses when the principal
becomes incapacitated, how can the attorney for an incompetent client waive a
right or fail to preserve error?1

       The majority relegates its response to this in a footnote. The majority next

       1
         I am not aware of any authority that allows the agency in the attorney-client relationship
to survive incapacity, unlike a statutory durable power of attorney.

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suggests the trial court conducted an informal inquiry and found no evidence
existed of incompetency. The trial court did no such thing. Instead, the trial court:

       ordered an examination of [appellant] for the purpose of determining
       his present competency to stand trial pursuant to Article 46B of the
       Texas Code of Criminal Procedure . . . [because appellant] was
       admitted to Ben Taub Hospital after having been reported to have cut
       the side of his neck at 6:40 a.m. on the second day of his trial.2

However, after the psychological evaluation was returned, the trial court made no
explicit ruling—citing Code of Criminal Procedure article 33.03—on the separate
issue of appellant’s alleged voluntary absence from trial.3

       Then, relying on language in Turner v. State, the majority further suggests
that a formal competency trial was not required because a three-factor test was not
met. 422 S.W.3d 676, 696 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013).4 This three-factor test cited by
the majority expresses the well-established proposition that “some evidence must
be presented at the informal inquiry stage to show that a defendant’s mental illness
is the source of his inability to participate in his own defense.” Boyett v. State, 545
S.W.3d 556, 564 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018). But the majority disregards the trial
court’s action in ordering a competency examination, which concluded the

       2
         The quotation comes from the forensic psychological evaluation regarding competency
to stand trial, which the trial court admitted in evidence. The trial court previously sua sponte
signed an order stating, “Court orders an Immediate Competency evaluation . . . .”
       The Code of Criminal Procedure allows the trial court to have this examination
performed and requires the trial court to have it performed if the trial court determines that
evidence exists to support a finding of incompetency. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art.
46B.021(a), (b).
       3
          If the defendant is not competent, then how can the defendant make a voluntary
decision to be absent from trial? It appears that the trial court mistakenly treated the report of the
competency evaluation as conclusive evidence, rather than a report from an expert witness that
was evidence the factfinder could consider at the competency trial.
       4
         In Turner, the court explained the limited scope of its holding, and it did not purport to
rewrite the definition of incompetency in Code of Criminal Procedure article 46B.003(a).
Turner, 422 S.W.3d at 696.

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informal inquiry. The trial court was required at that point to hold a competency
trial under Code of Criminal Procedure subchapter 46B(C) to allow the factfinder
to determine appellant’s competency based on the evidence, including the expert’s
report that he was competent. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. arts. 46B051–.055; see
Boyett, 545 S.W.3d at 563.

       The majority’s improper commingling of the issues of incompetency and
voluntary absence from trial revives an issue from Brown v. State, in which our
sister court considered whether a criminal defendant’s suicide attempt was some
evidence of mental illness and incompetency. See Brown v. State, 393 S.W.3d 308,
313 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2012) (opinion on rehearing), rev’d, No. PD-
1723-12, 2014 WL 1032054 (Tex. Crim. App. Mar. 19, 2014), permanently abated
& court of appeals opinion ordered withdrawn, 439 S.W.3d 929 (Tex. Crim. App.
2014). I do not dispute there are opinions from the courts of appeals before and
after the 2003 enactment of current Code of Criminal Procedure chapter 46B that
summarily conclude that a defendant who attempts suicide does so because it’s a
“choice.” Not only is that an unyieldingly harsh view of mental illness, but it also
ignores chapter 46. So, I am curious both why a suicide attempt presents no
evidence of incompetency and why the majority does not engage the issue of
whether this is structural error under Marin.5

       But all of this could be avoided. We could abate this appeal and remand the
case to the trial court for the limited purpose of whether it is feasible to conduct a
retrospective competency trial, and if it is feasible, order the trial court to conduct a

       5
         Although the majority attempts to address the issue, the majority cites to cases from this
court for the proposition that error must be preserved for appellate review. However, those cases
do not address competency or structural error under Marin. The majority also cites to an opinion
from the court of criminal appeals that predates the current Marin structural-error analysis
employed by Texas courts. Therefore, none of the majority’s citations address the question raised
here of how the Marin structural-error analysis applies to competency determinations.

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competency trial. This court has done so recently. Bautista v. State, 605 S.W.3d
520 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2020, order), disp. on merits, 619 S.W.3d
374, 379 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2021, no pet.). In Bautista, the trial
court determined that defendant was incompetent at the time of his trial, rendering
the previous trial invalid on due-process grounds. This court reversed the previous
judgment of conviction and remanded the case to the trial court for a new trial
pursuant to Code of Criminal Procedure article 46B.055. Bautista v. State, 619
S.W.3d 374, 379 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2021, no pet.) (panel
consisting of JJ. Wise, Zimmerer, and Spain).

      Regardless of what happened below or what the lawyers for either appellant
or the State argue on appeal, this court has an independent duty to raise structural
error. Because the court sidesteps both the Marin issue and the requirements of
Code of Criminal Procedure chapter 46B by validating the trial court’s legal
conclusion that appellant’s suicide attempt was a voluntarily choice rather than on
some evidence of incompetency, I strongly dissent.

                                       /s/       Charles A. Spain
                                                 Justice

Panel consists of Justices Spain, Poissant, and Wilson (Poissant, J., majority).

Publish—Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b).

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