Court Opinion

ID: 9475173
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:19:02.15206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:32.894365
License: Public Domain

WALLACE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in the majority’s opinion except for Part C, in which the majority holds that a defendant is entitled to be present at a hearing on his competency to stand trial. From that holding, I dissent.
Whether due process and the sixth amendment grant a defendant the right to be present at a competency hearing is an open question in this circuit. Few courts have yet faced this issue. The one court that has thoroughly addressed the issue has held that the defendant’s absence at such a hearing presents no constitutional deprivation. See United States v. Makris, 398 F.Supp. 507, 509-11 (S.D.Tex.1975), aff'd, 535 F.2d 899 (5th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 954, 97 S.Ct. 1598, 51 L.Ed.2d 803 (1977) (Makris). The majority cites three district court opinions in support of its holding: United States v. Horowitz, 360 F.Supp. 772, 776 n. 7 (E.D.Pa.1973) (Horowitz), United States v. Abrams, 35 F.R.D. 529, 532 (S.D.N.Y.1964) (Abrams), aff'd on other grounds, 357 F.2d 539 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 384 U.S. 1001, 86 S.Ct. 1922, 16 L.Ed.2d 1014 (1966), and Martin v. Settle, 192 F.Supp. 156, 159 (W.D.Mo.1961) (Martin). None of these cases, however, is on point. In Martin, the court in one-sentence, conclusory fashion held that a defendant was entitled to be present at a hearing in which he was being committed to an institution when his competency was in question. No commitment proceedings are involved here. The court in Abrams simply directed that in the known circumstances of that case the defendant should *1111be present for the competency hearing. The court in Horowitz, while observing that a defendant generally should be present (citing Martin), 360 F.Supp. at 776 n. 7, ordered the defendant from the hearing because of his uncontrolled outbursts. Thus, until this opinion, no court has held that a defendant’s presence at a competency hearing is constitutionally mandatory.
The majority’s analysis is fundamentally flawed because it presumes that a competency hearing is “a critical stage of Sturgis’s trial.” Maj. op. at 1109. Such a hearing, however, is a preliminary proceeding to determine whether the defendant is capable of participating in the trial. It is not part of the actual trial itself. This crucial distinction must be recognized in order to analyze Sturgis’s claim.
A defendant has a “right to be present at all stages of the trial where his absence might frustrate the fairness of the proceedings,” Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 819 n. 15, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 2533 n. 15, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975) (emphasis added), but even this right is not absolute. Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 342-43, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 1060, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970) (Allen). Due process concerns are focused on the unfairness of going forward without the defendant as both an observant and a participant. See Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 54 S.Ct. 330, 78 L.Ed. 674 (1934) (Snyder). Sixth amendment concerns center on the right of a defendant both to confront his accusors and to assist his attorney or take over his own defense. Allen, 397 U.S. at 344, 90 S.Ct. at 1061.
These concerns are addressed in the context of competency hearings. First, it would be fundamentally unfair to require an incompetent defendant to stand trial. Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 378, 86 S.Ct. 836, 838, 15 L.Ed.2d 815 (1966). But more importantly, an incompetent defendant would not be capable of assisting counsel in his own defense. This latter pragmatic aspect is the principal concern of a competency determination. See, e.g., United States v. Swanson, 572 F.2d 523, 526-27 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 849, 99 S.Ct. 152, 58 L.Ed.2d 152 (1978).
The sixth amendment right of presence, however, does not come into play in a proceeding in which guilt or innocence is not being adjudicated. See, e.g., United States v. Hayman, 342 U.S. 205, 222, 72 S.Ct. 263, 274, 96 L.Ed. 232 (1952) (presence of defendant at § 2255 proceeding not required by sixth amendment). A hearing solely on competency does not involve guilt or innocence. It is instead a non-adversarial proceeding, see, e.g., United States v. Tesfa, 404 F.Supp. 1259, 1265 n. 9 (E.D.Pa.1975), aff'd, 544 F.2d 138 (3d Cir.1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 910, 97 S.Ct. 1185, 51 L.Ed.2d 588 (1977), “for the limited, neutral purpose of determining [a defendant’s] competency.” Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454, 465, 101 S.Ct. 1866, 1874, 68 L.Ed.2d 359 (1981) (Estelle). The proceeding is “restricted to ensuring that [the defendant understands] the charges against him and [is] capable of assisting in his defense.” Id.
A competency hearing is simply not a “critical stage” of the trial for purposes of the sixth amendment right of presence. Such “critical stages” only encompass those “critical confrontations of the accused by the prosecution at pretrial proceedings where the results might well settle the accused’s fate and reduce the trial itself to a mere formality.” United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 224, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 1931, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967) (emphasis added). The analysis must focus on “whether potential substantial prejudice to defendant’s rights inheres in the particular confrontation.” Id. at 227, 87 S.Ct. at 1932 (emphasis added); see also Cape v. France, 741 F.2d 1287, 1297 (11th Cir.1984) (psychiatric examination on competency is not a “‘critical stage’ of the aggregate proceedings” even when some of psychiatrist’s testimony is introduced at trial against the defendant when no “prejudice —either actual or potential — ” is shown).
Not only is there a lack of any “confrontation” involved, but there is no potential that “certain rights may be sacrificed or *1112lost.” Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 7, 90 S.Ct. 1999, 2002, 26 L.Ed.2d 387 (1970). The question of competency remains open throughout the trial, and may be raised (or even required to be raised) sua sponte by the court should circumstances warrant. See de Kaplany v. Enomoto, 540 F.2d 975, 979-80 (9th Cir.1976) (en banc), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1075, 97 S.Ct. 815, 50 L.Ed.2d 793 (1977). This continuing ability to reconsider the issue de novo substantially mitigates any possibility that a defendant would be significantly prejudiced by a pre-trial competency hearing in his absence.
As a practical matter, a defendant’s presence is not necessarily essential. Indeed, a defendant’s presence may at times be detrimental to his interests because he may “be affected adversely by hearing testimony relating to his mental condition.” Johnson v. United States, 293 F.2d 100, 102 (5th Cir.1961); e.g. Horowitz, 360 F.Supp. at 776 (defendant excluded from hearing after outbursts during testimony by psychiatrist). The majority declares that a “defendant’s demeanor and behavior in the courtroom can often be as probative on the issue of his competence as the testimony of expert witnesses.” Maj. op. at 1109. While this may be true in regard to proceedings in front of a jury deciding his guilt or innocence, a competency hearing entails different considerations because a defendant’s demeanor and behavior “could be so easily contrived as to be of little persuasiveness in the light of all other evidence.” Makris, 398 F.Supp. at 511.
The circumstances of this case highlight the lack of need for Sturgis’s presence at the “hearing.” The hearing consisted of the stipulated submission of two psychiatrists’ reports, neither of which questioned Sturgis’s competence. No testimony took place, obviating any possible need for his presence to “assist” in cross-examination. His competence remained open to question throughout the trial — just as it had been questioned several times before. His presence would have added nothing to the court’s determination.
It appears to me that the majority’s analysis, while vacillating between the right to presence and due process, can only be read as resting on some due process ground that Sturgis’s absence gave the proceeding an “appearance of impropriety.” This highly attenuated concern ignores the Supreme Court’s dictates that due process does not require a defendant’s presence even at trial “when [such] presence would be useless, or the benefit but a shadow.” Snyder, 291 U.S. at 106-07, 54 S.Ct. at 332. The same teaching would be even more applicable at a competency hearing.
Due process concerns do not require a defendant to “be present every second or minute or even hour of the trial.” Snyder, 291 U.S. at 116, 54 S.Ct. at 336. Instead, due process requires fairness, “but fairness is a relative, not an absolute concept.” Id. Sturgis’s presence at this particular hearing would be meaningless. Whether a defendant’s presence at a full hearing under different circumstances would require different considerations cannot alter this fact. We have been instructed that “[t]he concept of fairness must not be strained till it is narrowed to a filament.” Id. at 122, 54 S.Ct. at 338. I suggest that the majority has done so in this case and, therefore, I respectfully dissent.