U.S. v. Andrews, 06-1448.

• Decision Date: 07 December 2006
• Docket Number: No. 06-1448.,06-1448.
• Citation: 469 F.3d 1113
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Rodney ANDREWS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

469 F.3d 1113

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Rodney ANDREWS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 06-1448.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued September 19, 2006.

Decided December 7, 2006.

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Robert A. Anderson (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Madison, WI, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Brian Fahl, Federal Defender Services of Eastern Wisconsin, Inc., Milwaukee, WI, Michael W. Lieberman (argued), Federal Defender Services, Madison, WI, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before RIPPLE, MANION, and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

MANION, Circuit Judge.

Rodney E. Andrews is a serial bank robber and long-time drug addict. After Andrews was found competent to stand trial and agreed to a bench trial, the district court found him guilty of robbing a bank. Andrews, however, allegedly suffered from amnesia for the period of time surrounding the robbery. He claims that this rendered him incapable of assisting his attorney in preparing his defense and thus incompetent to stand trial. Because we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it declined Andrews' request for a second competency exam and it did not commit clear error when it found Andrews competent to stand trial despite his claimed amnesia, we affirm.

I.

On the morning of May 11, 2001, an individual, later identified as Andrews, entered the Anchor Bank in Madison, Wisconsin. He handed a bank teller a small bag from which he pulled out a piece of notebook paper that read: "Fill the bag. I have a gun." Andrews verbally repeated the same to the bank teller as she filled the bag with $1,837.00. He took the bag and immediately fled the scene.

Prior to the alleged robbery, a witness saw a man fitting the description of the bank robber pacing back and forth in front of the Anchor Bank while chain-smoking cigarettes. Surveillance video of the interior of the Anchor Bank taken during the robbery clearly depicted the robber and matched the witness' description of the man pacing and smoking outside of the bank prior to the robbery. A Madison police officer found fresh cigarette butts in the area where the witness saw the man pacing. The cigarette butts were stored as evidence. Three years later, in August 2004, the Madison Police Department sent the cigarette butts to the Wisconsin Crime Laboratory for DNA analysis. A DNA forensic analyst obtained and identified a DNA profile from one of the cigarette butts, which she compared to profiles of known offenders in the Wisconsin and FBI DNA databases. The DNA profile taken from the cigarette butt matched the DNA profile of convicted bank robber Rodney E. Andrews, who had been convicted of robbery in Indiana and had recently been paroled. Law enforcement authorities located Andrews, and with his consent the FBI obtained from him a DNA sample to confirm the positive match results. The Wisconsin Crime Laboratory confirmed the results to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty.

A grand jury subsequently indicted Andrews on one count of robbing the Anchor Bank in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a). The government also informed Andrews that he was a suspect in four other bank robberies that occurred between April 27, 2001 and May 11, 2001. Andrews' counsel stated that it was his understanding that the government intended to bring a superseding indictment charging Andrews with all five bank robberies, unless Andrews pleaded guilty to the charged robbery and stipulated to his culpability for the other four. Due to prior convictions, Andrews would be classified as a career offender for sentencing purposes if he was convicted of any one of the other bank robberies.

In advance of the hearing, Andrews' counsel filed a motion under 18 U.S.C. §§ 4241, 4242 and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12.2(c) for an order for Andrews to undergo a psychiatric and psychological examination to determine his present competency and his sanity at the time of the alleged bank robbery. The motion stated that Andrews had been a heavy user of heroin and alcohol at the time of the alleged robberies, and, as a result of his illegal drug and alcohol abuse, he has no present memory of where he was, or what he was doing, during the early to middle part of 2001. Andrews further claimed that he does not remember being in Wisconsin other than the time he spent as an inmate at Federal Correction Initiation in Oxford, Wisconsin, and when the United States Marshals Service transported him to Wisconsin for purposes of this case. The government did not oppose Andrews' motion. Magistrate Judge Stephen L. Crocker granted Andrews' motion and subsequently ordered the examination.

Andrews was examined at the New York Metropolitan Correctional Center by Dr. Cristina Liberati, a licensed psychologist. In her report dated August 2, 2005, Dr. Liberati concluded that Andrews, at the time of the evaluation, was not suffering from a mental disease or defect. Her report further stated that Andrews was competent to stand trial because he "has a rational and factual understanding of the proceedings against him and he is capable of assisting counsel with his defense." Regarding Andrews' criminal responsibility at the time of the offense, Dr. Liberati concluded that Andrews "did not have a mental illness impairing his ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct."

After Andrews was found competent to stand trial, he filed a new motion requesting an additional psychological examination. Andrews' second motion was based on his assertion that further examination was warranted because Dr. Liberati did not address specifically the effect of Andrews' claimed lack of memory during the period of the alleged robbery on his ability to assist his counsel. In his second motion, Andrews acknowledged that "the law of the Seventh Circuit does not currently recognize amnesia as a competency or due process issue." In its response, the government conceded, arguendo, that Andrews actually suffers amnesia regarding the events surrounding the robbery, but asserted that Andrews' motion should be denied based on existing precedent in this circuit, specifically United States v. Stevens, 461 F.2d 317 (7th Cir.1972), and Leach v. Kolb, 911 F.2d 1249 (7th Cir. 1990). On September 28, 2005, Magistrate Judge Crocker denied Andrews' motion for a second competency exam, stating that "given the law of this circuit, it does not appear that anything legally useful would be obtained by attempting to pinpoint more precisely any organic basis for Andrews' amnesia."

On November 3, 2005, prior to his trial, Andrews stipulated to the government's evidence against him, including the photographic and DNA evidence, as well as testimony from eyewitnesses and law enforcement personnel. The district court conducted a bench trial, and based on the stipulated evidence adjudged Andrews guilty of robbing the Anchor Bank. The district court later sentenced Andrews to a 151-month term of imprisonment. Andrews appeals.

II.

On appeal, Andrews argues that his amnesia regarding the period during which the charged crime occurred rendered him unable to assist in his own defense at trial, and thus the district court should have declared him incompetent to stand trial. Andrews also claims that the district court erred in denying his request for a second competency examination and hearing to evaluate the impact of his claimed amnesia on his fitness to stand trial. We consider each issue in turn.

As this court explained in United States v. Collins, 949 F.2d 921 (7th Cir. 1991), "[u]nquestionably, due process requires a defendant to be competent to stand trial." Id. at 924. To be competent, a defendant must have the "sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding ... [and must] ha[ve] a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him." Leach v. Kolb, 911 F.2d 1249, 1260 (7th Cir.1990) (internal quotations omitted). Regardless of whether the defendant moves for a competency evaluation, "the due process clause requires the trial judge to inquire sua sponte into a defendant's mental state if events in court imply that the accused may be unable to appreciate the nature of the charges or assist his counsel in presenting a defense." Timberlake v. Davis, 409 F.3d 819, 822 (7th Cir.2005).

In this case, Andrews claims that his amnesia prevented him from assisting his attorney in presenting a defense. Specifically, he argues that he was incompetent because he lacked any memory of the time period surrounding the alleged bank robbery, and thus he could not respond to the evidence presented against him. Andrews acknowledges that this court has held previously that "amnesia is not a bar to prosecution of an otherwise competent defendant," United States v. Stevens, 461 F.2d 317, 320 (7th Cir.1972), but argues that we should revisit that decision. We begin by reviewing our past decision in Stevens.

In Stevens we considered a factual and legal scenario very similar to this case. The defendant in Stevens stated that he had "been a chronic user of an indiscriminate variety of drugs for more than twenty years," and that his years of substance abuse had deprived him of any memory of substantial portions of his life, including the period during which the alleged crime of which he was convicted occurred. Id. at 318. The district court ordered a psychiatric examination. Id. The defendant was found to understand "the nature and quality of the act with which he was changed and the nature of his defense." Id. at 319. On appeal, the defendant argued that the evidence presented at trial of his sporadic amnesia presented a bona fide doubt as to whether he was competent to stand trial, and that the district court should have conducted, sua sponte, a competency hearing pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4241.¹ Id. We noted that while a district court is not expressly required to order further examination or a...