Court Opinion

ID: 9529984
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:56:05.826257+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:58.183125
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, Chief Justice
¶ 31. (concurring). I conclude, as does the majority, that the circuit court properly held that the State failed to prove that Garfoot was competent to stand trial. I write separately because I disagree with the majority's statement of the standard of appellate review.
¶ 32. The majority fails to recognize the proper standard of review because it fails to recognize the constitutional basis of the competency inquiry. A conviction of an incompetent person violates the right to a fair trial guaranteed by the due process clause of the *230Fourteenth Amendment. Pote v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 378, 385 (1966). The constitutional standard for competency to stand trial is enunciated in Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402 (1960) (per curiam), Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162 (1975), and Wis. Stat. § 971.13(1). The formulae set forth in Dusky and Drope are "open-textured"1 and have been the subject of a great deal of scholarly and decisional analysis.2 Many questions remain unanswered: What decision making abilities are encompassed by the Dusky formulation? To what extent do the Dusky tests include an accused's appreciation of the trial's significance and his or her own situation as a defendant in a criminal prosecution? What is the relation between the Dusky tests and legal rules relating to decision making by criminal defendants?3
¶ 33. I turn now to the standard of appellate review, an issue to which the parties devoted considerable effort in their briefing.4 Because the proper *231standard is a prerequisite to our consideration of the substantive issues presented and because the parties fully briefed the issue, both the majority opinion and this concurrence devote substantial discussion to this issue.
¶ 34. I conclude that a determination of competency, a determination of constitutional fact, should be *232decided by this court independently of the decisions of a circuit court or court of appeals, yet benefiting from the analyses of those courts and the observational advantage of the circuit court. The court of appeals has concluded that the finding of competence is an intertwined finding of fact and law which an appellate court decides independently, giving weight to the circuit court's decision.5
¶ 35. The majority opinion concludes that the applicable standard of review is that applied to a finding of fact, namely whether the finding of competency is clearly erroneous. Wis. Stat. § 805.17(2). The majority opinion focuses on the circuit court's observational advantage, concluding that the circuit court "is in the best position to weigh all the evidence necessary to make a competency determination."6 Majority op. at *233218, 229. The cases cited by the majority opinion to support its conclusion are not directly on point; none of them deals with appellate review of a circuit court's determination of competency to stand trial.7 Furthermore, other Wisconsin cases have described competency determinations as essentially legal matters to be decided independently by an appellate court.8
¶ 36. I conclude that the competency determination is not a matter of historical fact only and-should not be treated as an historical fact. The ultimate finding of competency, like a finding of voluntariness of a confession, is a finding of constitutional fact, and I therefore turn to our jurisprudence on appellate review of determinations of constitutional fact for the appropriate standard of review in this case. This jurisprudence focuses on the correct interpretation of controlling constitutional principles and thus requires an appellate court to make an independent determina*234tion of the constitutional fact, that is the application of the constitutional principle to the historical facts.
¶ 37. There are sound reasons for different standards of appellate review. The standard for appellate review of historical facts should give great deference to the circuit court. The circuit court sees and hears the witnesses and is in a better position than an appellate court to gauge credibility. Appellate courts thus review circuit courts' findings of historical fact merely to determine whether they are clearly erroneous.
¶ 38. Similarly, appellate courts review circuit courts' discretionary decisions merely for erroneous exercise of discretion because the law commits a range of decisions to the discretionary judgment of the circuit court. Independent review, when inappropriate, can undermine confidence in the circuit courts and encourage meritless appeals.9
¶ 39. Nevertheless independent decision making by an appellate court is required in some circumstances. As Judge Mary Schroeder has pointed out, increasingly deferential review inappropriately permits an appellate court to tolerate a large margin of trial court error without ever making a close examination of the trial court's ruling. Mary M. Schroeder, Appellate Justice Today: Fairness or Formulas, The Fairchild Lecture, 1994 Wis. L. Rev. 9, 10, 20.
¶ 40. The standard for appellate review of an issue thus depends on a determination of whether an appellate court or a trial court is the more appropriate and competent forum to make the particular decision.10
*235¶ 41. The court has distinguished matters of historical and constitutional fact for purposes of determining the appropriate standard of appellate review and has frequently decided matters of constitutional fact independently.11 Sound reasons underlie our traditional commitment to independent determination of findings of constitutional fact.
¶ 42. The principal reason for independent appellate review of matters of constitutional fact is to provide uniformity in constitutional decision making.12 In applying the skeletal constitutional rule, appellate courts flesh out the rule and provide guidance to litigants, lawyers and trial and appellate courts and achieve uniformity of application. The court clearly stated this goal when deciding that it would independently determine whether a confession met the constitutional standard of voluntariness.
*236"Whether the defendant voluntarily made the confession is a matter of fact. However, it is a question of "constitutional" fact which must be independently determined by this court. . . .The scope of constitutional protections, representing the basic value commitments of our society, cannot vary from trial court to trial court. . . . Whatever the ultimate substantive dimension of these rights might be, they must be uniform throughout the jurisdiction. This can be accomplished only if one decision maker has the final power of independent determination.
State v. Hoyt, 21 Wis. 2d 284, 305-06, 128 N.W.2d 645 (1964) (Wilkie, J., concurring).13
¶ 43. A circuit court's finding that the historical facts meet the constitutional standard of competency to stand trial should, I believe, be determined independently by an appellate court. In making this determination an appellate court may draw upon the circuit court's reasoning and observational advantage, but the appellate court independently measures the facts against a uniform constitutional standard.
¶ 44. Professors Liebman and Hertz have urged appellate courts to use greater precision in their analy-ses of trial courts' competency determinations. James S. Liebman & Randy Hertz, 1 Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure 578-81 n.55 (2d ed. 1994). Although directed to the distinct issue of which state court determinations are entitled to a presumption of *237correctness for purposes of federal habeas, corpus review,14 their comments address our present concern.
Precision in thinking about the process of assessing "competency" (whether it is competency to stand trial or to waive available legal remedies) also is helpful. That assessment can be viewed as essentially a two-part inquiry. The reviewing court first must evaluate the factual evidence regarding "competence," including the credibility of the psychiatric and lay assessments of the individual's mental state. Thereafter, the reviewing court must determine whether the basic facts proven by the evidence satisfy the applicable legal standard of competence. Once these two aspects of the competency assessment are distinguished, it becomes more clear that, although state court findings on the threshold factual issues generally are subject to a presumption of correctness, the subsequent determination (based on those facts) "[wjhether one is competent to stand trial under the Fourteenth Amendment [or competent to waive legal remedies] is a mixed question of law and fact" that is not subject to a presumption of correctness.
Id. at 580 (citations omitted).
¶ 45. For the reasons set forth I write separately.
*238¶ 46. I am authorized to state that Justices Janine P. Geske and Ann Walsh Bradley join this opinion.

 Richard J. Bonnie, The Competence of Criminal Defendants with Mental Retardation to Participate in Their Own Defense, 81 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 419, 424 (1990); State v. Debra A.E., 188 Wis. 2d 111, 124-26, 523 N.W.2d 727 (1994).

 ABA Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards, Standard 7-4.1, Commentary, at 168-175 (1989).

 See generally Richard J. Bonnie, The Competence of Criminal Defendants: Beyond Dusky and Drope, 47 U. Miami L. Rev. 539 (1993). Professor Bonnie also describes the dignity, reliability and autonomy rationales which underlie the prohibition against convicting an incompetent person. Id. at 551-54.
Garfoot's brief suggests a fourth rationale: convicting an incompetent person is inconsistent with the proper purposes of criminal punishment. Brief for Petitioner at 21.

 The standard of review was raised by Garfoot in his petition for review as a primary issue justifying review; he devoted 11 pages of his 27-page argument in his brief to this issue. The *231State addressed the issue in 5 pages of its 29-page argument in its brief. Garfoot and the State do not agree on the appropriate standard of review.
Garfoot argues for a standard of review that benefits his position before this court, namely that the circuit court's determination that he was incompetent should not be disturbed unless clearly erroneous.
The State's position on the standard of review is more nuanced and the State asserts that its proposed standard of review is close to that set forth by the court of appeals.
The State distinguishes a circuit court's findings of historical fact which inform the competency determination from the legal standard of competency. "Appellate courts review the legal standard used by the trial court independently... .In addition, the trial court's failure to determine competency in the context of the case, consider modifications of the trial proceeding [for the benefit of an accused] and exercise independent legal judgment are legal errors and reviewed independently." Brief for State at 24.
The State proposes the following standard of review: "[W]here a trial court has relied upon relevant evidence and used the correct legal standard to make an independent determination, a competency determination should be upheld unless clearly erroneous." Id. at 24-25.
The State further asserts that its proposed standard has "the same objective" as the standard applied by the court of appeals, namely that an appellate court will "give weight to the trial court's decision, even though the decision is not controlling." Id. at 26-27. For the court of appeals' statement of the standard of review see note 5 below.

 The court of appeals set forth the standard of review and its reasoning as follows:
Our review of the trial court's ruling is therefore de novo. We nevertheless decline to make the competency determination without giving the trial court the opportunity to apply the proper standard to the facts. Competency determination is not a pure question of law. It is intertwined with the facts. When a trial court is required to make an intertwined finding of fact and law, we give weight to the trial court's decision, even though the decision is not controlling. See Wassenaar v. Panos, 111 Wis. 2d 518, 525, 331 N.W.2d 357, 361 (1983).
State v. Garfoot, No. 94 — 1817-CR, unpublished slip op. at 9 (Wis. Ct. App. Nov. 9, 1995).

 The majority opinion also refers to the circuit judge's "superior ability to observe the defendant" as a basis for giving deference to the circuit court's competency determination. Majority op. at 224.
The circuit court's analysis of the defendant's conduct should be made part of the record as findings of historical fact.
The conclusion drawn, that the defendant is or is not competent, remains, however, a matter of constitutional fact to be *233determined independently by an appellate court regardless of the source of the underlying historical facts.

 Some cases cited by the majority deal with appellate review of a circuit court's determination of the existence of a reason to doubt competency; State v. Pickens, 96 Wis. 2d 549, 292 N.W.2d 601 (1980), deals with appellate review of a circuit court's determination of competency to represent oneself at trial.

 See, e.g., In the Matter of Guardianship of Cheryl F., 170 Wis. 2d 420, 425, 489 N.W.2d 636 (Ct. App. 1992) (whether facts fulfill legal standard of incompetency justifying appointment of guardian is a question of law determined independently). Cf. State v. King, 187 Wis. 2d 548, 557, 523 N.W.2d 159 (Ct. App. 1994) (whether amnesiac defendant received a fair trial is question of constitutional fact to be determined independently by appellate court).

 Corroon & Black v. Hosch, 109 Wis. 2d 290, 318-19, 325 N.W.2d 883 (1982) (Abrahamson, J., dissenting).

 Corroorc & Black, 109 Wis. 2d at 314-322; Nottelson v. ILHR Dept., 94 Wis. 2d 106, 113-18, 287 N.W.2d 763 (1980) *235(similar issue of standard of review in review of administrative agency decisions).

 See, e.g., State v. Santiago, 206 Wis. 2d 3, 17-18, 556 N.W.2d 687 (1996) (sufficiency of Miranda warnings); State v. Turner, 136 Wis. 2d 333,344,401 N.W.2d 827 (1987) (voluntariness of consent to search, voluntariness of confession, whether right to silence has been scrupulously honored); State v. Hoyt, 21 Wis. 2d 284, 305-06,128 N.W.2d 645 (1964) (on motion for rehearing) (Wilkie, J., concurring) (voluntariness of confession) (citing Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568 (1961) (same)).

 See, for example, State v. King, 187 Wis. 2d at 557, in which the court of appeals concluded that an independent appellate review of a finding of constitutional fact that an amnesiac defendant received a fair trial was necessary because "[t]he reviewing court has the duty to apply constitutional principles to the facts found in order to ensure that the scope of constitutional protections does not vary from case to case."

 Although Justice Wilkie wrote in concurrence, this Hoyt language has been adopted by the court. See, e.g.. In the Interest of Isiah B., 176 Wis. 2d 639, 645-46, 500 N.W.2d 637 (1993) (reasonableness of search and seizure); State v. Fry, 131 Wis. 2d 153, 171, 388 N.W.2d 565 (1986) (search incident to arrest).

 The federal courts' concern in this context is distinct from ours. The federal courts, trial and appellate, give deference to a broad range of state court fact findings under principles of federalism. The federal courts' determination of what fact findings are entitled to the presumption of correctness is not intended to parallel, nor to determine, the appellate standard of review of state trial court fact findings. Nevertheless, the federal courts' analyses may be instructive.