Court Opinion

ID: 9775750
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:08:25.909426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:30.807479
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Chief Justice,
concurring in part/dissenting in part.
I join the majority insofar as it reverses appellant’s conviction on double jeopardy grounds, and for denial of the appellant’s right to a physical examination of the victim. However, I disagree with its finding no error in the conduct of the competency hearing. Appellant’s conviction should be reversed because he was excluded, over objection, from an in-chambers hearing conducted to determine the alleged child victim’s competency as a witness, in violation of the eleventh section of the Bill of Rights of the Kentucky Constitution.
In all criminal prosecutions the accused has the right to be heard by himself and counsel; to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him; to meet the witnesses face to face, and to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.
Ky. Const. sec. 11 (emphasis added).
The facts of this case require the Court to reconsider the scope of its holding in See v. Commonwealth, Ky., 746 S.W.2d 401 (1988). That case was this Court’s first opportunity to consider the defendant’s right to be present during a competency hearing after the United States Supreme Court rendered its decision in Kentucky v. Stincer, 482 U.S. 730, 107 S.Ct. 2658, 96 L.Ed.2d 631 (1987). In Kentucky v. Stincer, the Kentucky Supreme Court had reversed the defendant’s conviction of sodomy of several children, because his exclusion from the competency hearing violated his right to confrontation guaranteed by both the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution and section eleven of the Kentucky Constitution. Stincer v. Commonwealth, Ky., 712 S.W.2d 939, 940 (1986). The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari on the sixth amendment grounds, and reversed the Kentucky Supreme Court. Kentucky v. Stincer, 107 S.Ct. at 2666.
Because [Stincer] had the opportunity for full and effective cross-examination of the two witnesses during trial, and because of the nature of the competency hearing at issue in this case, we conclude that respondent’s rights under the Confrontation Clause were not violated by his exclusion from the competency hearing of the two girls.
Id. (emphasis added).
The United States Supreme Court did not hold that a defendant’s exclusion from a competency hearing could never violate his or her confrontation rights under the Sixth Amendment. “The appropriate question is whether there has been any interference with the defendant’s opportunity for effective cross-examination. No such interference occurred in this case.” Id. at 2667 n. 1.7.
In See, supra, the Kentucky Supreme Court retreated from its still viable position that section eleven of the Kentucky Constitution guaranteed the criminal defendant’s right to attend competency hearings. First, in a feat of linguistic sleight of hand, the majority found no significant difference between the confrontation rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the “face to face” meeting with witnesses protected by the Kentucky Constitution. “The drafters of our state constitution did not add the phrase ‘face to face' to its protections afforded an accused merely to reconcile an irreconcilable difference.” See, 746 S.W.2d at 404 (Stephens, C.J., dissenting).
Second, the majority drew the erroneous conclusion that if this Court held that excluding a criminal defendant from a competency hearing violated the Kentucky Constitution, “we should place ourselves in direct opposition to an opinion of the United States Supreme Court, even though we may have the right to do so as a matter of state law.” Id. at 402-03. Choosing not to take this position, the Court found Kentucky v. Stincer controlled and required a finding that a defendant has no right to attend a competency hearing.
*561As noted above, the United States Supreme Court did not require such a finding; it held instead that Sergio Stincer’s constitutional rights were not violated under the circumstances. It took a case-by-case approach, which should have been applied in See. Therefore, this Court would not place itself in direct opposition to a United States Supreme Court opinion if, in an appropriate set of facts, it found a violation of section eleven of the Kentucky Constitution, because such a finding under the sixth amendment would not necessarily be inconsistent with Kentucky v. Stincer.
If ever a set of facts demanded reconsideration of this Court’s interpretation of section eleven, the case at bar presents them.
[W]hen a defendant is placed on trial by the state for criminal conduct he is entitled to be present and to assist his counsel at hearings to determine the competency of witnesses against him.
Commonwealth v. Stincer, 712 S.W.2d at 941. Appellant Turner was in a particularly advantageous position to assist his attorney in asking questions that would have resulted in a more reliable competency determination. Appellant was the alleged victim’s father. He knew her background and could have advised his attorney of inaccuracies or untruths in the witness’s answers on which to follow-up.
In addition to being excluded from the hearing, appellant was further prejudiced by surrounding circumstances. He and the victim’s mother had divorced; custody was granted to the mother. The evidence revealed significant post-divorce discord. For example, appellant’s ex-wife admitted on cross-examination that during and subsequent to the divorce she brought three unsubstantiated allegations of sexual and physical abuse. (The divorce judge refused to restrict appellant’s visitation on the basis of the claims.) Yet, the mother was permitted to attend the competency hearing, while appellant, the father, was not. The underlying domestic dispute should have aroused sufficient suspicion of coaching the victim to have compelled the trial court to exclude the mother as well as appellant, if either was to be excluded. A preferable alternative would have been to conduct the competency-to-téstify proceeding in open court and before the jury.
The case at bar presents this Court with the opportunity to correct the misleading conclusions drawn in See. If the eleventh amendment to the Kentucky Constitution does not demand that a defendant be permitted to attend competency hearings in all cases; and I would hold that it does unless a defendant waives the right by threatening or other inappropriate behavior; then it at least requires that appellant Turner should have been permitted to attend, given the facts of this case. These facts further support mandating an open court hearing.
If the hearing to determine whether the child is a competent witness is held in open court in the presence of a jury, it will (1) assist the jury in evaluating the child’s truthfulness and (2) avoid the potential for intimidation that results from the intimacy inherent in an in-chambers procedure.
See, 746 S.W.2d at 404 (Stephens, C.J., dissenting) (emphasis in original).
When a defendant is on trial for a serious criminal offense, and4 faces a lengthy jail term as a possible penalty, as in all criminal prosecutions, he or she had the right to be present and to assist counsel at hearings to determine the competence of witnesses against him. Because the majority refuses to recognize this right, I must dissent from that part of the opinion denying error in the conduct of the competency hearing.
LEIBSON, J., joins in this concurring in part and dissenting in part opinion.