Court Opinion

ID: 9764916
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:43:54.987171+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:02.291696
License: Public Domain

ODOM, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority on rehearing have misread Article 46.02, V.A.C.C.P., and confused two separate and distinct provisions of that article.
Section 2(b) addresses raising the issue of incompetency to stand trial and provides:
“If during the trial evidence of the defendant’s incompetency is brought to the attention of the court from any source, the court must conduct a hearing out of the presence of the jury to determine whether or not there is evidence to support a finding of incompetency to stand trial.”
Section 4(a), on the other hand, addresses the incompetency issue itself and provides in part:
“If the court determines that there is evidence to support a finding of incompetency to stand trial, a jury shall be impaneled to determine the defendant’s competency to stand trial.”
Obviously, less is required for a Sec. 2(b) inquiry than for a Sec. 4(a) hearing. In the case at bar the trial judge should have conducted an inquiry. On original submission this Court unanimously held that Sec. 2(b) was triggered by the evidence presented. The majority grossly misstate the issue in this case when it states, “[T]he Legislature intended to preserve bona fide doubt in the mind of the trial judge as the standard of proof to be met before a separate mid-*713trial determination of the accused’s competency will be required.” (Emphasis added.) This is no slight misstatement; Sec. 4(a) is quoted in the next statement by the majority. But a Section 4(a) determination of appellant’s competency is not the issue! The Section 2(b) inquiry of whether to determine appellant’s competency is the issue before this Court and the issue upon which the case was reversed on original submission. The majority’s confusion is manifest.
The majority also express unfounded fears of frivolous claims of incompetency. They claim the Legislature did not intend Section 2(b) inquiries “in response to baseless claims of incompetency.” The whole purpose of a Section 2(b) inquiry is to determine whether the claims are baseless. If only well-founded claims trigger Sec. 2(b), then a Sec. 4(a) hearing will always follow, and the Sec. 2(b) inquiry would be a wasteful formality. The majority again reveal their confusion of Sec. 2(b) with Sec. 4(a), and the result is a wholly unconvincing effort at statutory construction.
I vigorously dissent.
ROBERTS and PHILLIPS, JJ., join this opinion.