Court Opinion

ID: 9717655
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:07:53.915713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:54.531075
License: Public Domain

PRENTICE, Justice,
dissenting.
J dissent to the majority decision as to Issue I and would remand the cause with orders to vacate the verdict and proceed anew with a determination of Defendant’s competency to stand trial. It is clear that the trial court had reasonable grounds for believing that Defendant lacked the ability to understand the proceedings and assist in the preparation of his defense. Otherwise he would not have set a hearing to determine the issue. Having determined that the circumstances invoked the statute, Ind. Code § 35-5-3.1-1, the court was bound to proceed in accordance with its provisions. This, he started out to do, but when it appeared that such proceedings could not be completed without occasioning a delay in the trial, the competency proceedings were “short circuited.”
Paragraph (b) of the statute provides that the trial will proceed, if the court determines that the defendant has the requisite ability but that it will be delayed, if it finds that defendant does not have such ability. Inherent in the statute is the requirement that the competence hearing precede the trial—not that trial may precede the hearing. It is also inherent in the statute that the competency determination be made at the conclusion of the hearing—not prior to it or in the middle of it. I do not find it significant that the trial court announced that he would declare a mistrial in the event that he changed his mind during the course of the trial. This, he would be required to do in any event.
Although we may assume that nothing occurred, during the trial or upon hearing the testimony of the belatedly appointed Dr. Batacan, that reflected substantially and adversely as to Defendant’s competence and that a remand is, therefore, a waste of judicial time, effort and money, in my view there could be no trial without a determination of competency and no determination without a hearing held, and completed in accordance with the statutory provisions.