Court Opinion

ID: 9591531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:04:52.119223+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:08.285487
License: Public Domain

Utter, J.
(dissenting) — In State v. Rice, 110 Wn.2d 577, 621, 757 P.2d 889 (1988), this court held that the test for sanity at trial, sentencing or punishment is whether the defendant is "capable of properly appreciating his peril and of rationally assisting in his own defense". The majority confirms this standard and then ignores it, accepting the trial court's oral finding of competency which was based on *444an incorrect definition of competency. Since I cannot agree with the majority's purported application of the standard of competency to the facts of this case, I dissent.
The United States Supreme Court has decreed that in capital proceedings, fact-finding procedures aspire to a heightened standard of reliability. Ford v. Wainwright, All U.S. 399, 411, 91 L. Ed. 2d 335, 106 S. Ct. 2595, 2602 (1986). "Thus, the ascertainment of a prisoner's sanity as a predicate to lawful execution calls for no less stringent standards than those demanded in any other aspect of a capital proceeding." Ford v. Wainwright, supra at 411-12. The fact-finding procedure used by the trial court in the case at bar does not reach an acceptable level of reliability because the trial court failed to use the correct definition of competency to be executed and failed to consider relevant evidence.
The trial judge considered competency for execution to be separate from competency to assist counsel.1 As a result, the trial judge refused to admit into evidence the report of the defense psychiatrist, Dr. Muscatel, because it was based on Harris' ability to assist counsel. Report of Proceedings, at 38. The trial judge should have admitted Dr. Muscatel's report because the ability to assist counsel is essential to a finding of competency. Instead, the trial judge concentrated on what Dr. Muscatel thought was the Kentucky standard for competency. Report of Proceedings, at 40. Dr. Muscatel thought that this standard was whether an individual is acutely psychotic or obviously agitated and confused, which indicates that the individual doesn't understand what is happening or why. Report of Proceedings, at 41. Neither party briefed nor argued to the trial judge what the appropriate standard in Washington would be.
Dr. Muscatel testified that Harris understood the nuts and bolts of the proceedings and was not having an acute *445psychotic episode or hallucinating. From this, the trial judge found Harris competent to be executed under the Kentucky standard. But the Kentucky standard is not the Washington standard.
Under the Washington standard, Dr. Muscatel's testimony and written report give rise to grave doubts about Harris' competency to appreciate his peril or to rationally communicate with his counsel. Dr. Muscatel's testimony indicated that Harris does not appreciate his peril because he believes he will not be put to death.
[T]he delusional system that he experiences, which causes him to believe that what he is experiencing that in fact that in essence although he knows that he's facing execution, he's unconcerned about it because he believes that he will be exonerated and set free before anything happens; therefore he's not concerned about being executed.
Report of Proceedings, at 44-45. Dr. Muscatel concluded, " [M]y major concern was ... his judgment about what was happening to him and the ability to appreciate the reason that this might be happening to him". Report of Proceedings, at 47.
Concerning Harris' ability to assist counsel, Dr. Muscatel stated:
[O]ne of the major features of my concerns about his competence with regards to assisting his attorney in a sense that he has — that Mr. Harris, when we talked, he would begin to answer the question and then move on in his own direction in a very tangential manner. And we would continue to talk and go off in the direction that I judged to be his delusional system. And, therefore, getting that information [concerning the process that resulted in his present situation] was very, very difficult. In his descriptions, his own attorney as well as the prosecutors and the courts and everybody else are deeply and completely imbedded [sic] in this plot of conspiracy against him.
Report of Proceedings, at 46. Dr. Muscatel's report concluded:
I find that there is reason for substantial concern for this man's competence to assist his attorney in the current aspects of his appeals. He has no interest in discussing any aspect of his appeal process, except to have his attorney interrogate those people who he claims are central to the conspiracy against him and who he feels will exhonerate [sic] him in this matter.
*446I am particularly concerned about his ability to provide a reasonable recounting of his experiences and conversations with his attorney at the time of his trial, and of the decisions that were made before and during the trial process. His recall of those times is so embedded in the delusions he holds at present . . . that it is nearly impossible to ascertain useful and coherent information from him on these matters.
Report of Dr. Muscatel, at 3.
Certainly, there is serious doubt about Harris' ability to rationally communicate with his attorney. All of Harris' discussions with counsel seem to concern this conspiracy. If this conspiracy is a delusion, this is not rational communication.
The majority claims that a defendant's ability to recall and recount events surrounding the crime is not crucial. Majority, at 429. However, it is necessary for a defendant to have this ability when appellate counsel was not trial counsel. The defendant is the only one in such a situation who can familiarize appellate counsel with the circumstances, some of which may not have come out at trial, so that counsel can provide effective assistance. According to Dr. Muscatel, Harris does not possess this important ability to recall the events of the crime.
Dr. Muscatel stated that he could not at that point say with certainty that Harris is incompetent. Counsel requested 3 weeks for Dr. Muscatel to further examine Harris and reach a more definite conclusion. Counsel requested that at that time, the court hold a competency hearing. Three weeks is not a major delay and counsel's request seems a reasonable one in light of the importance of the issue. The competence determination involves the highest possible stakes. It determines whether an individual lives or dies.
Federal law demands that we require a heightened standard of reliability from fact-finding procedures in capital cases. Ford v. Wainwright, supra. The trial court's oral finding, in an impromptu competency hearing for which neither party was sufficiently prepared, based on a standard for competency that does not apply in Washington, and *447without consideration of relevant evidence discarded by the judge, is not an adequate finding of competency.
I would remand to the trial court for a competency hearing and give the trial court the opportunity to determine whether Harris meets the threshold burden of a showing of incompetency using the correct standard and considering all relevant evidence the parties have to offer.
This court should not be making a finding of competency based on the incomplete record before us. Accordingly, I dissent.
Pearson, J. Pro Tern., concurs with Utter, J.

 [A]s far as this court is concerned at this stage of the proceedings I think we are only concerned here with competency, as the witness said, for the purposes of execution, death warrant. I am not, in this court, concerned with his competency for the appeal process, or standing trial or any of these other matters." Report of Proceedings, at 35.