Court Opinion

ID: 9653218
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:41:25.034442+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:57.157096
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Justice
(dissenting).
It seems to me that the mandatory provisions of § 552.020.3,1 requiring that where “the finding [on fitness to proceed] is contested the court shall hold a hearing on the issue”, have not been followed here and that the judgment must therefore be vacated and defendant given a new trial. I also am of the opinion the findings, conclusions and judgment of the trial court in the 27.26 proceeding are clearly erroneous.
In the original murder trial, a motion was filed for an examination of “defendant’s mental ability to understand the proceedings against him and to aid counsel in his defense”. This was sufficient to bring the provisions of § 552.020 into play even if defendant’s then counsel was unaware of the statute. The motion was supported by strong representations made to the trial court by defendant’s then counsel, which the court, in view of the Canons of Ethics, rule 4.22, was entitled to expect were spoken in “candor and fairness”. Even the assistant prosecuting attorney said that while he did not know if defendant was “mentally unstable”, he considered the defendant “goofy”. So there can be no question but that defendant’s fitness to proceed was put in issue.
As the trial court found in the present 27.26 proceeding, following defendant’s return from the mental examination made at State Hospital No. 2 in 1964, “no hearing was held by the Court to determine defendant’s competency to stand trial as provided for by § 552.020, V.A.M.S.”
Despite this, in his opening statement to the jury in the original trial, defend*336ant’s then counsel took the position that defendant was not competent to proceed, saying that defendant would not take the stand “because we shall prove through medical authority that the man is not competent to cooperate with me”. Later he told the jury he would prove “this man is incompetent”.
In his final argument to the jury, defendant’s then counsel challenged the conclusion of the examining doctor contained in the above report that “He has adequate intellectual capacity to assist his counsel in the conduct of his legal defense”, saying to the jury “That, I will not accept. He is not a lawyer. He does not know what I require of my client. When he cannot answer me intelligently, so I can handle his defense properly.” Later counsel said to the jury: “That is all I can tell you. I presented no evidence because this man can not cooperate with me * * * I can not consistently talk with my client to prepare at least a half decent defense.”
It is thus quite clear that at the time of the first trial defendant did in fact contest the finding of the examining physician that defendant was competent to proceed. It may not have been done in the usual way, but to quote from the opinion in State v. Brizendine (Mo.Sup.) 391 S.W.2d 898, 901, “As counsel for defendant here states, ‘It is apparent from the transcript that neither appellant, the State, nor the Court, was aware of, or at least proceeded under Chapter 552.’ ” This failure to be aware of the statute cannot, of course, eliminate the requirement of a hearing by the court on the issue of fitness to proceed, where as here, it is apparent defendant was and is contesting the finding made by the examining physician.
At such a hearing § 552.020 provides the report may be received in evidence, but the defendant has the right to summon and cross-examine the physician and to offer evidence. The report in question, made by Dr. Waraich, dated February 28, 1964, is a good example of why such reports should be subject to cross-examination where the finding is contested. The way the report is written Dr. Waraich himself decided the issue. He declared, “ * * * He has adequate intellectual capacity to assist his counsel in the conduct of his legal defense * * *. Therefore, we respectfully suggest that his case be handled through the ordinary channels of criminal law.”
But there is no showing that Dr. Waraich was aware of what the legal standard of fitness to proceed is or whether on examination by counsel, the doctor would testify to facts which would support a judicial finding of fitness to proceed. Defendant’s counsel recognized this when he pointed out, “That, I will not accept” (referring to the doctor’s conclusions) and that the doctor “Even tells the State what to do in this case.” In Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402, 80 S.Ct. 788, 4 L.Ed. 2d 824, it is said the “ ‘test must be whether he has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding — and whether he has a rational as well as a factual understanding of the proceedings against him’ ”. All the psychiatrist is competent to do is to render a medical report. The trial judge is the one who knows about criminal proceedings and who is qualified to pass on whether defendant is competent to proceed within the requirements of the test laid down above. This unquestionably is why the legislature provided for a hearing in contested cases and for a determination by the trial judge. As I understand it, this means a full and fair evidentiary hearing to the end of determining an issue of fact, and findings and a decision made by the trial court on the basis of that evidence. This was not done in this case.
In the present 27.26 proceeding the trial court after finding as a fact that no hearing was held as required by § 552.020, arrives at the conclusion that defendant was not prejudiced by lack of a hearing on his competency to proceed. In arriving at *337this conclusion the trial court seems to rely on the following:
1. The conclusions reached by Dr. Waraich in the report of February 28, 1964, that defendant was competent to stand trial.
2. Failure of defendant’s then counsel to object to the report.
3. Failure of defendant’s then counsel to request an examination by a physician of his own choosing.
4. Defendant’s then counsel’s satisfaction with the report.
5. Defendant’s former counsel’s testimony at the 27.26 hearing that the claim of incompetency to proceed was merely a defense tactic.
6. The February 1967 report of Dr. Owre, another psychiatrist at State Hospital No. 2, received, over objection, as a part of the 27.26 hearing, that the crime was a product of a state of alcoholic intoxication and that defendant was heavily intoxicated at the time.
I have already discussed the problems involved in placing full reliance on Dr. Waraich’s conclusions without giving defendant an opportunity to cross-examine or present evidence of his own. See also, Butler v. United States (C.C.A. 10) 361 F.2d 869, holding a district court erred in a proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, in accepting a similar report without a hearing and an opportunity to cross-examine the doctor. See, also, Brizendine v. Swenson (D.C.W.D.Mo.) 261 F.Supp. 68, 75, and People v. Gonzalez, 20 N.Y.2d 289, 282 N.Y.S.2d 538, 229 N.E.2d 220, 222. In Heard v. United States, D.C.D.C., 263 F.Supp. 613, cited on this point by Commissioner Welborn, the court points out the transcript was “devoid of expressions of doubt as to competency by any of the parties.” That is not the case here, where defendant’s then counsel in the murder trial many times stated defendant was not competent to proceed.
Two, 3 and 4 above can be considered together. I do not believe it can be said that defendant’s then counsel’s failure to object to the report can operate to avoid the necessity for the hearing required by § 552.020 when the finding is contested, as it in effect was, nor do I believe it can fairly be said that defendant’s then counsel was satisfied with the report. As in Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 384, 86 S.Ct. 836, 15 L.Ed.2d 815, the record in the first trial shows that defendant’s then counsel insisted throughout the trial that defendant’s fitness to proceed, his competency to cooperate in his defense, was very much in issue. Failure of defendant’s then counsel to request an examination by a physician of defendant’s own choosing gets back again to counsel’s unawareness of defendant’s rights under § 552.020. Although defendant’s then counsel was employed by defendant’s sister, counsel claimed in open court during the trial defendant did not have the money to employ a psychiatrist (it is to be noted that defendant is here as an indigent and the trial court also permitted him to appeal as a pauper from his original conviction). During the state’s closing argument, the prosecutor was pointing out that if there were any question of insanity, defendant’s lawyer would have psychiatrists in court to testify, to which counsel objected, “because we haven’t got the money or the means.” Under § 552.020 defendant was entitled as a matter of course to an examination by a physician of his own choosing and the expense could be taxed as costs under § 552.080. So it would not appear that defendant’s counsel’s failure to request an examination by a physician of defendant’s own choosing was necessarily because defendant did not want one. It could well have been as stated, because counsel had no funds with which to employ an examiner, yet at the same time was not aware one could be obtained by court order under § 552.020.
As to 5, the record is clear the court in the 27.26 hearing accepted defendant’s former counsel’s statement that there sim*338ply was no truth in what counsel first told the court and later the jury about defendant’s lack of fitness to proceed, that counsel knew all along defendant was sane and understood the charge, the witnesses, and the possible defenses, that this was just a matter of trial tactics. Parenthetically, it is to be noted that rule 4.15, How Far a Lawyer May Go in Supporting a Client’s Cause, points out that “Nothing operates more certainly to create or to foster popular prejudice against lawyers as a class, and to deprive the profession of that full measure of public esteem, and confidence which belongs to the proper discharge of its duties, than does the false claim * * * that it is the duty of the lawyer to do whatever may enable him to succeed in winning his client’s cause.”
Be that as it may, the fact is most evident that the testimony at the 27.26 hearing of defendant’s former lawyer was highly self-serving, because one contention advanced by defendant in the hearing was prejudice through lack of effective assistance of counsel in failing to be aware of Chapter 552 and what could be done for defendant under it. Therefore, if it appeared that there was no merit to the claim of lack of fitness to proceed or not guilty by reason of mental defect, then, of course, there could be no prejudice to defendant and counsel would not be remiss in failing to raise the defenses and invoke the procedures available under Chapter 552. Without taking time to compare the testimony at the 27.26 hearing with what counsel said at the original trial point by point, or to quote the statements which were the direct opposite of what had earlier been said, it is apparent defendant’s former counsel said one thing at one time and something very different at another.
What this does to a witness’ testimony is discussed by Professor Wigmore in his work on Evidence, Vol. Ill, 3rd Ed., § 1017, on Self-Contradiction, where he states, pp. 685-686: “ * * * we resort simply to the witness’ own prior statements, in which he has given a contrary version. We place his contradictory statements side by side, and, as both cannot be correct, we realize that in' at least one of the two he must have spoken erroneously. Thus, we have detected him in one specific error, from which may be inferred a capacity to make other errors * * *.
“* * * [I]n the present mode, the process of discrediting is in its chief aim incomparably stronger, because it always shows that the witness had made some sort of a mistake at some time, and thus demonstrates a capacity to make errors. In other words, both of his statements cannot be correct; one of the two must be incorrect; therefore, he shows a capacity to err. It is the repugnancy of the two that is significant * * * ‘if what he says be contradictory, that removes him from all credit; for things totally opposite cannot receive belief from the attestation of any man.’ ”
It seems to me, therefore, that findings and conclusions of the trial court that there was no prejudice to defendant in the failure to hold a hearing on his competency to proceed, to the extent they are based on the inconsistent, self-serving testimony of defendant’s former counsel, are clearly erroneous and without any substantial support.
As to 6 above, we again have an untested report from an examining psychiatrist which is accepted at face value by the trial court, over objection, and which contains a finding on which the trial court in the 27.26 hearing seems to place considerable reliance, namely, that the defendant was heavily intoxicated and the crime was the product of a state of alcoholic intoxication. The foundation for this statement by the medical examiner is puzzling. The transcript in the original trial shows that there were four witnesses, all called by the state, who were specifically asked whether defendant was drunk or had been drinking. One, Mrs. Anderson, the night clerk in the hotel, who saw defendant as he left the hotel a few minutes after the *339shooting, said he was not drunk as far as she could see. Claudia Cox, at whose place defendant appeared a few minutes after the shooting and left the gun, with the statement he had shot the deceased, said he did not seem drunk and that she had on many occasions seen him when he was drunk. Clara Powell, who was with Claudia Cox, said she didn’t pay that much attention to defendant. Janice Jean Clark, the eyewitness to the shooting, said she did not know whether he had been drinking or not. The trial testimony from the state’s witnesses, therefore, does not show any evidence of drinking. Yet the medical examiner, in 1967, concludes the crime was “the product of a state of alcoholic intoxication.” In arriving at this conclusion the report takes into consideration the history as given by defendant to the examiner, saying it indicates “in all probability” defendant was “heavily intoxicated”. The same report, however, says that the man whose statement of history is being accepted is “unfit to proceed at this point”, has paranoid schizophrenia, his mental condition “has deteriorated markedly” since the first examination in 1964 (when he was described as “functioning within the borderline range of intellectuality”), that defendant should be hospitalized in a mental hospital for closed ward psychiatric treatment, and is unable to understand the proceedings against him and to assist in his own defense. I fail to see how this report under the above circumstances can be regarded as substantial evidence tending to support the findings and conclusions of the trial court. Taking into consideration the entire record before the court in the 27.26 proceeding (which included the record in the first trial), I believe the findings, conclusions and judgment of the trial court in the 27.26 proceeding were clearly erroneous and that since the mandatory procedures of § 552.020 for a hearing on fitness to proceed when the issue is in dispute were not followed in the original trial, that the judgment must be vacated and set aside and defendant given a new trial.
Finally, it seems to me the findings' of the trial court are also clearly erroneous on the issue of competency of counsel. Kono-mos held himself out as an experienced specialist in criminal law. Yet he was not aware that the law had been changed in Missouri so that the defendant could not be held criminally liable for his conduct if by reason of mental disease or defect he did not know or appreciate the nature, quality or wrongfulness of his conduct or was incapable of conforming his conduct to the requirements of law. The trial did not start until March 30, 1964. The new law became effective October 13, 1963. In that length of time, as a specialist in the field, Konomos should have known about it. Konomos tried to convince the jury his client had a mental disease or defect. He told the jury he would prove defendant was “incompetent”. He read Dr. Waraich’s report to the jury and commented on it. He argued the defendant was a schizophrenic, that he was next to the borderline of insanity, had no intent to kill, needed treatment, not punishment, yet he also told the jury the issue they must decide was whether defendant knew right from wrong, and the only instructions counsel offered were based on whether defendant was incapable of determining right from wrong. These instructions would have held defendant to a more rigorous standard than the law required where mental defect or disease is involved. They further illustrate counsel’s lack of knowledge of the only defense available. Defendant’s representation by counsel was below the acceptable standard.
I, therefore, respectfully dissent.

. All statutory references are to Y.A.M.S.; all rule references are to V.A.M.R.