Court Opinion

ID: 9792818
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:37:18.632295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:19.948241
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Associate Chief Justice,
dissenting:
I dissent. I submit that the majority opinion implicitly assumes that a finding of malingering equals a finding of competence. It is possible for a person to be malingering and incompetent at the same time. The trial court addressed the question of malingering, but it did not address the question of defendant’s competence to stand trial, even though a petition alleging incompetence was duly filed. Because the trial court failed to rule on defendant’s allegations of incompetency as required by statute, I would remand for the statutorily mandated treatment of defendant’s petition, especially in light of the trial court’s initial finding of incompetency.
On the basis of the testimony of two psychologists, the court initially found defendant incompetent to stand trial and committed him to the state hospital. Upon receiving reports of possible malingering, the trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing on that question. The court ruled that defendant had been malingering, vacated its original finding of incompetency and order of commitment, and entered findings of fact and conclusions of law. Although some of the testimony presented at the hearing consisted of opinions about defendant’s competency, the court’s findings and conclusions related solely to the issue of malingering. At that point, the court stated that the issue of competency was at “equipoise,” as if “the Finding and Order [which had held defendant was incompetent to stand trial] had never been forthcoming.” The court also noted that defendant had the right to petition again for a determination of competency, which defendant did on March 3,1994.
Yet the trial court has never entered an order on the legal question of defendant’s allegations of incompetency, as required by Utah Code Ann. § 77-15-5(1). That provision, at the time Robertson filed his second petition, stated in pertinent part:1
When a petition is filed pursuant to Section 77-15-3 the court shall enter an order for a hearing on the mental condition of the person who is the subject of the petition.
The trial court in this case has not complied with this statutory requirement. The majority apparently presumes that a competency ruling is merely a factual finding that is subject to the analysis presented in State v. Ramirez, 817 P.2d 774, 787 (Utah 1991). That is not correct. At the time Robertson filed his petition, section 77-15-5(1) required, and still requires, the court to make a specific legal determination about defendant’s competency. Under Utah Code Ann. § 77-15-2, a person is incompetent to stand trial if he is unable “to have a rational and factual understanding of the proceedings against him or of the punishment specified for the offense charged” or he is unable to “consult with counsel and to participate in the proceedings against him with a reasonable degree of rational understanding.” When Robertson filed his petition, the trial court was required to hold an evidentiary hearing on the matter and rule on defendant’s competency to stand trial. The majority apparently argues that we can simply infer that factual findings on *1236the competency issue were made to support a legal ruling that was never entered. Neither Ramirez nor any other case supports such a proposition. Even if the court had entered a legal ruling on the issue of competency, the failure to make any factual findings renders this case closely analogous to State v. Labrum, 925 P.2d 937, 940-41 (Utah 1996), which held that failure to make statutorily mandated findings may constitute reversible error.
In short, I do not believe that trial courts can simply dispense with the statutory requirements of § 77-15-5(1) and § 77-15-2, as the majority allows in this case. Although the court did state that it “does not believe that the Defendant will cooperate in the performance of a competency evaluation and that, therefore, the evaluation will not render valid data,” this statement was made prior to the petition for inquiry into defendant’s competency, and it related specifically to the court’s opinion as to defendant’s malingering behavior. It therefore could not suffice as a ruling on defendant’s allegations of incompetency. The issues of malingering and competency, though inevitably somewhat interrelated, are nevertheless legally and logically distinct and cannot be conflated for purposes of competency determinations.
In the context of a fundamental decision which goes to the heart of the authority and ability of the state to try a defendant for crimes charged, I would hold that trial courts must make their competency rulings, along with detailed findings supporting those rulings, on the record.
Justice DURHAM concurs in Associate Chief Justice STEWART’S dissenting opinion.

. This provision was substantially amended effective May 2, 1994, and now requires a preliminary ruling on the sufficiency of the allegations, followed by a full hearing if the court finds "that the allegations of incompetency raise a bona fide doubt as to the defendant's competency to stand trial.”