Court Opinion

ID: 9499043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:36:12.263775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:14.934124
License: Public Domain

CLAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting a stay of execution to enable the district court to adjudicate the competency of Petitioner’s brother, Paul Dennis Reid. In fact, the district court’s decision comports with this panel’s instructions of three years ago concerning the proper course of action to be taken when Reid’s competency to be executed is reasonably in doubt. See *618Kirkpatrick v. Bell, 64 Fed.Appx. 495 (6th Cir.2003) (instructing the district court to stay the execution and hold a full eviden-tiary hearing on the defendant’s competency if it is adduced that reasonable doubt as to competency exists).
Therefore, if this case is “parallel” to the Kirkpatrick case (as the majority asserts), I fail to understand why the majority feels compelled to raise the issue of exhaustion sua sponte, when the issue was neither raised below nor to this Court, and to instruct the district court to address exhaustion as a threshold matter before holding any evidentiary hearing concerning Reid’s competency. In fact, the majority’s instructions to the district court on this matter risk sending this litigation back into the very tailspin in which it seems to have stayed for the past three years. As of the present time, the state of Tennessee has been unable or unwilling to proceed with an adjudication of Reid’s competency in a full evidentiary hearing; in proceedings before the district court on June 27, 2006, the state of Tennessee averred that it was unprepared to go forward with a competency hearing, despite the fact that Reid’s competency has been an issue in litigation between these parties in some form or another for the past three years.
Exhaustion is, unquestionably, an important issue, but it would seem that the majority is needlessly diverting the court’s attention away from the critical and as of yet unresolved issue of the last three years. The threshold issue currently before the courts is Reid’s competency. Without a full evidentiary hearing on competency immediately upon remand, the district court is left without direction as to the appropriate party to represent Reid’s interests in any further proceedings. The district court has not yet found Reid to be incompetent; therefore, Petitioner does not yet have the authority to proceed as Reid’s next friend on any matter in federal court. At the same time, Reid is alleged to be incapable of making rational decisions on his own behalf. Without an initial decision on the competency issue, the district court will be left in doubt as to the appropriate party to litigate the issue of exhaustion, or any other issue, on Reid’s behalf.
It is important to note that the exhaustion requirement of 28 U.S.C. § 2254 contains several exceptions. The statute precludes the granting of a writ unless it appears that the applicant has “exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State, or that there is either an absence of available State corrective process or circumstances exist that render such process ineffective to protect the rights of the applicant.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1) (emphasis added). An execution scheduled before a prisoner has an opportunity to timely litigate his claims as permitted by federal law, and Tennessee’s refusal to agree to a stay of execution pending the resolution of Petitioner’s next friend status, certainly presents a case where the circumstances are such that state mechanisms are ineffective in protecting Reid’s rights. By its very terms, then, 28 U.S.C. § 2254 allows the district court to address Reid’s competency even if the competency claim is “unexhausted” in the state court system.
It is undisputed that the state cannot execute Reid if he is incompetent. See Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 106 S.Ct. 2595, 91 L.Ed.2d 335 (1986). As the ruling below indicates, sufficient evidence of Reid’s incompetency was presented at the hearing conducted by the district court on June 27, 2006, in connection with the motion to stay the execution, to merit a full evidentiary hearing on the matter. Having rebuffed attempts by both Reid’s counsel and his sister to establish Reid’s incompetency in state court, the state of Tennessee has indicated that it desires to *619carry out the death sentence before the federal courts can exercise their timely review of the state’s decision. If Reid were a competent defendant pursuing his own federal habeas relief, a stay of execution during the pendency of his federal habeas petition would have been automatic. In the absence of any recognized next friend acting on Reid’s behalf, however, the state has opposed any stay of execution while Petitioner seeks habeas relief on the issue of Reid’s competency, the same issue Petitioner presented to the state courts on Reid’s behalf. The district court therefore properly stayed Reid’s execution pending a determination of Reid’s competency, a determination which should be made immediately upon remand because it is the threshold issue in this litigation. Exhaustion issues, along with any other pending issues, can be addressed once the district court has determined the proper party to represent Reid’s interests before the court; to do this, Reid’s competency must first be adjudicated.
In essence, the majority has decided that a condemned man who may be incompetent to be executed should be forced to litigate the complicated issue of exhaustion without a determination having been made as to whether he is able to understand the nature of the proceedings, to consult with counsel, and to otherwise participate in the proceedings. I therefore concur in upholding the district court’s grant of the stay of execution, but I dissent from the majority’s instruction to the district court that the district court cannot proceed further on the incompetency issue without first delving into what may be protracted exhaustion litigation.