Court Opinion

ID: 9471852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:42:42.077956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:36.656406
License: Public Domain

BAUER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Defendant Johns insisted on pleading guilty, waived her right to counsel, and invoked a deep belief in God. I do not believe that this evidence was sufficient to raise a bona fide doubt about Johns’ competency, and therefore I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion.
The majority opinion states that Johns’ behavior at her first hearing before the district court raised a suspicion about her ability to consult with her attorney. It is true that Johns’ guilty plea apparently surprised her attorney, that waiving her right to counsel carried significant implications for her case, and that her statement that “[t]he Lord is my attorney” was an unusual way of expressing her relationship with God. In my opinion, though, none of Johns’ statements raised a genuine doubt about her “present ability to consult with [her] lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding.” Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402, 80 S.Ct. 788, 4 L.Ed.2d 824 (1960). The district court explained to Johns the implications of her decisions, and Johns' responses do not indicate that she failed to appreciate the significance of her actions. The court also inquired into whether Johns was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and whether she ever had been treated for mental illness. Although the majority opinion acknowledges that Johns’ defense attorney told the court that he believed Johns was mentally competent, the majority omits that after questioning Johns the court itself commented that Johns seemed to be competent:
The Court: Okay.
Mr. Noll [appointed defense attorney], you have talked to Miss Johns.
Any reason to think she’s not mentally competent?
She certainly appears to be mentally competent to me.
Mr. Noll: No, Your Honor, she’s mentally competent.
Tr. of Proceedings, Feb. 15, 1983, at 29.
I also disagree with the majority's conclusion that Johns’ responses at her next two appearances before the district court raised any suspicions about her competency to a bona fide doubt. The majority opinion characterizes Johns’ responses as silent, nonresponsive, or monosyllabic, yet a review of the transcript shows that virtually all of Johns’ answers were appropriate. Her monosyllabic responses were answers of “yes” or “no,” principally in response to the court’s repeated attempts to appoint new counsel for her, and her silence was in response to the court asking whether she had anything to say before sentencing. *959Her only nonresponsive statement was “I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ” in answer to the court’s inquiry as to whether she wanted to read the entire presentence report. I do not believe that this response alone raises a bona fide doubt regarding Johns’ competency, especially in light of her earlier-mentioned tendency to express her religious beliefs in an unorthodox fashion.
Although I agree with Johns’ contention that post-trial events may help clarify the evidence here, Appellant’s br. at 16, I disagree with the conclusion that Johns draws from those post-trial developments. Johns infers that her transfer to a psychiatric ward from the penitentiary two months after her sentencing hearing helps to show that she was mentally incompetent at the time of trial. Neither Johns’ brief nor the majority opinion, however, discloses that Johns since has been transferred back to the penitentiary. More importantly, the Director of the Bureau of Prisons is required by statute to notify the district court if post-sentence inspection shows probable cause that a criminal defendant was mentally incompetent at the time of trial. 18 U.S.C. § 4245 (1949). The record is void of any indication that the district court has been notified of any inspection showing that Johns was mentally incompetent, and thus, by negative implication, we can conclude that any examination of Johns conducted at the psychiatric ward did not reveal that she was mentally incompetent.
The record provides a more logical explanation of Johns’ behavior before the district court. Initially, Johns had told the FBI that she had been coerced into kidnapping the child and that the kidnapping was an act of retaliation against the child’s mother. During her appearances before the court, Johns stated that no one else had been involved in the kidnapping. Johns took full responsibility for the crime and claimed that she kidnapped the child only for the ransom money. At the sentencing hearing, the district court told Johns that he believed her earlier story and was convinced that the kidnapping was in retaliation for the mother’s cooperation with the Springfield Police Department in an earlier investigation. The court and the Assistant United States Attorney repeatedly attempted to persuade Johns to reveal her accomplices in the crime. When Johns refused to cooperate, the court sentenced her to fifty years in the federal penitentiary with the admonishment that “[i]f you want to be honest with the Court, you let me know.” Tr. of Proceedings, March 25, 1983, at 14.
I ani convinced that Johns’ reluctance to identify the other persons involved in the kidnapping, not mental incompetency, accounts for her actions. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.