Court Opinion

ID: 9719353
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:49:33.492696+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:06.421064
License: Public Domain

NEWSOM, J.
I respectfully dissent.
While I have no doubt that evidence of Pope error might be produced at a habeas corpus hearing, I find no convincing evidence of incompetency on the record before us. Evidence of maniacal behavior raises no inference that a criminal defendant is mentally ill; only that he is vicious, or capable of viciousness under certain circumstances. And as for the recommendation of the probation officer that a psychiatric evaluation might prove helpful, I think it does not lie with us, on the present record, to say that Tallo had no right to decline such a course of action, or that his counsel was under a professional duty to command it.
This case suggests to me an interesting aspect of the so-called Pope doctrine. If, as is the case here, a criminal defendant insists that he did not commit the act which comprises the charged crime, is his lawyer bound to investigate the defense of diminished capacity, which presupposes that he committed the act, if not the offense, in question? I think he is not.
A petition for a rehearing was denied May 13, 1985, and the dissenting opinion was modified to read as printed above. Newsom, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.