Court Opinion

ID: 9679145
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:42:18.336278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:10.652727
License: Public Domain

*859ROACH, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent only as to the majority’s holding that requires a retroactive competency hearing. In the appropriate case, I have no qualms with the concept of retroactive competency hearings as set forth in Thompson v. Commonwealth, 56 S.W.3d 406 (Ky.2001). However, the majority fails to properly apply Mills v. Commonwealth, 996 S.W.2d 473 (Ky.1999), which held in circumstances almost identical to those in this case that it was harmless error to allow a defendant to waive a competency hearing. I also believe that Thompson and Mills were decided erroneously in part in that they failed to recognize that two separate interests — a statutory right and a constitutional right — are at stake in analyzing whether a defendant is competent, and, more importantly, that different standards govern those interests.
To begin with, while Mills held that a competency hearing “cannot be waived by a defendant,” 996 S.W.2d at 486, it also held that waiver of such a hearing could be harmless error. Id. In Mills, the Court noted that the psychiatric report indicated the defendant was competent to stand trial, that the defendant failed to present any other evidence of incompetence, and that the trial court had ordered the psychiatric examination because the defendant filed a notice of intent to introduce evidence of mental illness, insanity, or mental defect, not because of any belief or evidence that the defendant was incompetent. Id. Because the defendant “failed to establish any factual basis which should have caused the trial court to experience reasonable doubt as to [his] competence to stand trial ... we h[e]ld that it was harmless error for the trial court to allow [him] to waive the mandatory competency hearing .... ” Id.
In this case, the trial court ordered that Appellant be examined pursuant to KRS 504.100(2) because his attorney claimed to have concerns about his competency to stand trial. The psychiatrist’s report indicated Appellant was competent to stand trial. At a subsequent pretrial hearing, the trial court asked Appellant’s attorney whether a competency hearing was necessary. The attorney continued to express concern about his client’s “level of ... intellectual functioning,” but advised the court about the content of the psychiatric report. Appellant’s attorney also told the trial court that he had no reason to believe Appellant would be unable to assist in his defense or was otherwise incompetent. Based on this, Appellant’s attorney declined the offer of a competency hearing.
These facts are almost identical to those in Mills. The majority even recognizes this case’s factual similarity to Mills. Yet, rather than applying the harmless error aspect of Mills, the majority opinion, relying on the notion in Mills that competency hearings are mandatory under KRS 504.100(3), has ordered a retroactive competency hearing for Appellant. But given the factual similarity between this case and Mills, even assuming that the reasoning in the latter was correct (meaning that Appellant’s waiver of a competency hearing in this case was error), it is clear that Appellant’s waiver was harmless error. This alone would cause me to respectfully dissent from the majority opinion.
However, I also believe that Mills, which gave rise to Thompson, which in turn the majority relies on to require a retroactive competency hearing, contains a significant error of law. Mills correctly notes that “[c]riminal prosecution of a defendant who is incompetent to stand trial is a violation of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment” of the United States Constitution. Id. at 486. Under the Fourteenth Amendment “once facts known to a trial court are sufficient to place a *860defendant’s competence to stand trial in question, the trial court must hold an evi-dentiary hearing to determine the question.” Id. at 486. Mills also stated correctly that the “United States Supreme Court decisions indicate strongly that a defendant cannot waive a competency hearing.” Id. at 486. Under this federal constitutional standard, once the threshold showing has been made, a defendant cannot waive a competency hearing. However, under the Fourteenth Amendment, a competency hearing is only necessary “where there is substantial evidence that a defendant is incompetent.” Filiaggi v. Bagley, 445 F.3d 851, 858 (6th Cir.2006). On appeal, the test is “ ‘whether a reasonable judge, situated as was the trial court judge whose failure to conduct an eviden-tiary hearing is being reviewed, should have experienced doubt with respect to competency to stand trial.’ ” Id. (quoting Williams v. Bordenkircher, 696 F.2d 464, 467 (6th Cir.1983)).
Kentucky has a statutory mechanism initiating an inquiry into a defendant’s competence to stand trial. A trial court is required to have a defendant examined if it “has reasonable grounds to believe the defendant is incompetent to stand trial .... ” KRS 504.100(1). The statute requires that after the defendant is examined, “the court shall hold a hearing to determine whether or not the defendant is competent to stand trial.” KRS 504.100(3).
In Mills, we addressed the interaction between the requirements of the process and out' statute in regards to competency hearings. As Mills explained, KRS 504.100 is “entirely consistent with these [due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment] constitutional requirements.” 996 S.W.2d at 486. This is clearly the case since the statute, if followed, provides at least as much protection for defendants as the Fourteenth Amendment requires. Mills also correctly held that the plain words of KRS 504.100(3) require a hearing if the court ordered an examination under KRS 504.100(1). Id. Mills then held that KRS 504.100(3) “is mandatory and cannot be waived by a defendant.” Id.
It is this last point where I believe Mills went astray. Primarily, I think Mills ignores that the evidentiary threshold at which each right attaches is different. The Fourteenth Amendment right to a competency hearing only comes into play when the judge has “substantial evidence that a defendant is incompetent,” Filiaggi, 445 F.3d at 858, whereas the statutory mechanism kicks in when the judge merely “has reasonable grounds to believe the defendant is incompetent .... ” KRS 504.100(1). The Fourteenth Amendment right requires a significantly higher evi-dentiary burden than the statutory right. I think the difference is akin to that between the notions of “probable cause” and “reasonable articulable suspicion” in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Under this framework, it is possible that the evi-dentiary threshold for the statutory right could be met without that evidence rising to a level sufficient to invoke the Fourteenth Amendment right.
In fact, I think that is exactly what happened in this case. The statutory right in this case was invoked when the defense attorney told the trial court that he had concerns about his client’s competency and the trial court ordered that Appellant be examined pursuant to the statute. The court’s order was predicated on the statement that “there is reason to believe that the above defendant is not mentally capable of understanding the charge against him/her, or aiding his/her counsel in the trial of said case ....” At that point, however, the trial court was relying only on the attorney’s representations as to his concerns; the court had been presented *861with no other evidence that Appellant was incompetent. While counsel’s representations may have been sufficient to start the KRS 504.100 inquiry into Appellant’s competency (with the trial court’s findings in the regard enjoying a great deal of deference on appeal), absent evidence to support them, they are insufficient to invoke the Fourteenth Amendment right to a competency hearing. Verbalized concerns about a defendant’s competency made to the trial court, even by an attorney as an officer of the Court, do not constitute “substantial evidence that a defendant is incompetent.”
And no such substantial evidence was later presented to the trial court. As discussed above, after the trial court entered its order under KRS 504.100(1), Appellant was examined by a psychiatrist, whose report was returned to the trial court as required by KRS 504.100(2). The psychiatrist found that Appellant was competent, and Appellant’s attorney, having no reason to question the report, accepted it and waived the hearing.
As noted above, due process does not require a competency hearing in every case. Rather, the due process right to a hearing, while perhaps unwaivable, is nonetheless conditional and depends on the existence of substantial evidence of incompetence.1 As the Filiaggi court noted, the appropriate inquiry is whether at the time the trial court declined to order the hearing, “a reasonable judge, situated as was the trial court judge whose failure to conduct an evidentiary hearing is being reviewed, should have experienced doubt with respect to competency to stand trial.” Filiaggi, 445 F.3d at 858. Under this standard of review, I believe that it is clear that even after the psychiatric examination, there was no evidence before the trial court to create doubt as to Appellant’s competency. At that point, Appellant’s Fourteenth Amendment right to a competency hearing still had not attached.
Unfortunately, Mills, and subsequently Thompson, conflated the due process and statutory rights and, in the process, erroneously grafted the much lower statutory evidentiary standard of “reasonable grounds to believe” onto the unwaivable constitutional right. But I think that so long as the due process right has not attached, our inquiry should be limited to the separate, and quite different, statutory right, which Appellant clearly waived in this case.
The easy response to this is that because the statute employs the word “shall” with respect to holding a competency hearing, KRS 504.100(3), it is mandatory once the trial court orders a defendant to be evaluated for competency. This appears to be at least part of the basis of the holding in Mills that “[t]he competency hearing of KRS 504.100(3) is mandatory and cannot be waived by a defendant,” 996 S.W.2d at 486, and the majority’s reason for ordering the retroactive hearing in this case. But such a construction of the statute appears to require that we ignore RCr 9.24, our harmless error rule, in applying KRS 504.100. In fact, the majority opinion fails even to cite or to discuss the rule and, as discussed above, fails to apply the harmless error aspect of Mills.
This construction also ignores our longstanding rule that a defendant “may waive any mere statutory right.” Keith v. Commonwealth, 195 Ky. 635, 243 S.W. 293, 297 (1922). The rights afforded a defendant under KRS 504.100 are like the vast ma*862jority of other numerous rights that are enjoyed by a defendant — they can be waived. Appellant never asserted his right nor did he object to the lack of a hearing. In fact, his attorney affirmatively declined the offer of a hearing after he saw the psychiatric report about his client.
Ultimately, I think this case is an example of how Justice Wintersheimer characterized Thompson: “This is a clear case of appellate counsel desiring to change the actual facts of the trial.” Thompson, 56 S.W.3d at 411 (Wintersheimer, J., dissenting). Worse still, Appellant’s claim amounts to little more than a request that KRS 504.100 be applied blindly and formu-laieally, without regard to the actual evidence, so as to manufacture error where none exists. I fear that the majority opinion has done just that.
I respectfully dissent.
WINTERSHEIMER, J., joins this dissenting opinion.

. Although it is even further afield than my current concern, I would also note that the unwaivability of a hearing required by the Fourteenth Amendment does not mean that an erroneous waiver is not subject to harmless error.