White v. Estelle

• Decision Date: 08 March 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-1087,81-1087
• Citation: 669 F.2d 973
• Parties: Robert Lee WHITE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. W. J. ESTELLE, Jr., Director, Texas Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 973

669 F.2d 973

Robert Lee WHITE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. W. J. ESTELLE, Jr., Director, Texas Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 81-1087.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

March 8, 1982.

Robert M. Brown, Court-appointed, Lubbock, Tex., for petitioner-appellant.

Mark White, Atty. Gen., Gerald C. Carruth, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for respondent-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Before BROWN, GEE and GARWOOD, Circuit Judges.

GEE, Circuit Judge:

This appeal concerns the proper standard of review as applied to a state court jury verdict of competency prior to criminal proceedings. Appellant White was convicted of capital murder by a Texas state court and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was afforded a competency hearing before trial pursuant to Tex.Code Crim.Pro. art. 46.02 (Vernon). A jury found White competent to stand trial, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed White's conviction but held that it could not review the sufficiency of the evidence of incompetence because its review was limited to questions of law. White v. State, 591 S.W.2d 851, 856 (Tex.Crim.App.1979). ¹

White then sought relief by writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. That court denied habeas relief and adopted the opinion of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. On White's challenge to the sufficiency of the jury's finding of competence, the district court, after a review of "all the evidence," stated:

The issue presented ... is whether the testimony from the psychiatrist and the two clinical psychologists, each of whom examined the petitioner on three occasions, greatly predominates to show that petitioner was incompetent to stand trial and that the testimony adduced by the prosecution from lay witnesses who had occasion to observe petitioner on a frequent basis was not adequate to negate or rebut petitioner's claim of incompetence. The jury answered special issues adverse to petitioner's position. The evidence adduced was legally sufficient to enable a rational trier of facts to make the same findings which the jury made.

White appeals from the denial of habeas relief. We affirm.

White was afforded a competency hearing in accordance with Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 86 S.Ct. 836, 15 L.Ed.2d 815 (1966) (due process compels a hearing on competency when facts or events at trial raise a bona fide doubt as to the defendant's competence; it is denial of due process to try an incompetent on a criminal charge). Under Texas law, the issue of competency to stand trial is determined in advance of trial on the merits where there is evidence to support a finding of incompetence. Tex.Code Crim.Pro. art. 46.02 § 2(a) (Vernon). A person is deemed incompetent to stand trial if the accused does not have

(1) sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding; or (2) a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him.

Id. § 1(a). A defendant is "presumed competent to stand trial and shall be found competent to stand trial unless proved incompetent by a preponderance of the evidence." Id. § 1(b).

White does not challenge either the constitutionality of Texas' definition of competence or the constitutionality of its procedures for a competency hearing. White's claim of error is substantive, not procedural. ² His dispute is with the jury verdict of competence, and he urges this court to review all the evidence presented in the state court proceeding in order to decide de novo whether he proved his incompetence by a preponderance of the evidence.

White's claim clearly states a cognizable claim for habeas relief. As this court has recently pointed out,

... a criminal defendant enjoys the fundamental substantive guarantee of not being tried if he is unable to "consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding" or if he does not possess "a rational as well as a factual understanding of the proceedings against him."

Acosta v. Turner, 666 F.2d 949, 954 (5th Cir. 1982), (quoting Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402, 402, 80 S.Ct. 788, 789, 4 L.Ed.2d 824 (1960). The right to raise this substantive constitutional right in post-conviction proceedings has been recognized in federal courts since long before Pate v. Robinson, supra. See Nathaniel v. Estelle, 493 F.2d 794, 796 (5th Cir. 1974).

White's plea for de novo review is based on Bruce v. Estelle, 483 F.2d 1031 (5th Cir. 1973), on appeal after remand, 536 F.2d 1051 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1053, 97 S.Ct. 767, 50 L.Ed.2d 770 (1976). Bruce I was a habeas proceeding in which this court found that due process was not satisfied by the post-conviction proceeding to determine competence afforded in that case. Accordingly, we remanded for a "full and meaningful" hearing that would not employ the M'Naughton rule as the controlling standard to determine competency. The district court, on remand, conducted a nunc pro tunc competency hearing, and the trial judge concluded that the accused could assist in his own defense, could rationally understand the proceedings against him, and was therefore competent. Bruce II, on appeal from the remand, reversed the trial judge's determination of competency. On the applicable standard of review, the court stated:

As enunciated in (United States v. Makris, 535 F.2d 899 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 954, 97 S.Ct. 1598, 51 L.Ed.2d 803 (1976) ), this second stage determination of legal incompetency is subject to a review more stringent than the clearly erroneous rule. To insure protection of valuable constitutional rights, this court is bound to take a hard look at the ultimate competency "finding."

536 F.2d at 1059-60.

United States v. Makris guides our inquiry. In that case we pointed out that:

The question of competency, of course, is a mixed question of law and fact which has direct constitutional repercussions. It thus would be improper for a federal court to give conclusive weight to a state court finding of competency without reanalyzing the facts.

535 F.2d at 907. We also noted that in Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162, 95 S.Ct. 896, 43 L.Ed.2d 103 (1975), the Supreme Court had emphasized that competency should not be cast in an operative fact mold and thus insulated from constitutional adjudication. ³ What this means, according to the Makris court, is that:

... we should take a hard look at the trial judge's ultimate conclusion and not allow the talisman of clearly erroneous to substitute for thorough-going appellate review of quasi-legal issues.... We stress, however, that we by no means adopt the requirement of a de novo review. We say no more than that the clearly erroneous rule is to be limited to its proper sphere. It is not to be discarded.

535 F.2d at 907.

Both Bruce v. Estelle and United States v. Makris, involving appellate court review of a federal trial court's retroactive competency hearing held pursuant to this court's remand, say little about the proper standard of review when examining a state court's pretrial competency hearing before a jury, however. ⁴ Our inquiry must necessarily be considerably less than de novo review. In Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), the Supreme Court determined the appropriate standard of review in a federal habeas proceeding resulting from a claim of insufficient evidence to support a state criminal conviction. Echoing this circuit's words in Makris, the Supreme Court pointed out that "a federal court has a duty to assess the historic facts when it is called upon to apply a constitutional standard to a conviction obtained in a state court." Id. at 318, 99 S.Ct. at 2788. The Court proceeded to point out that the relevant question for an appellate court "is whether, after reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Id. at 319, 99 S.Ct. at 2789 (emphasis in original). This judicial review of all the evidence "impinges upon 'jury' discretion only to the extent necessary to guarantee the fundamental protection of due process of law." Id. The test laid down in Jackson is thus a safety net designed for appellate court review of constitutional error. The Jackson test grew out of the constitutional rule requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt for a criminal conviction. ⁵ The Jackson standard accommodates both the constitutionally compelled burden of proof under state law (proof beyond a reasonable doubt) and the presumption of correctness due jury verdicts generally. In this case, we have a constitutionally grounded state burden of proof declaring that an accused is not to be subjected to a criminal trial if there is a demonstration of incompetence by a preponderance of the evidence before trial. ⁶ We also have a jury verdict of competence entitled to a presumption of correctness. By contrast to Bruce and Makris, our court now sits in review of a state jury verdict that has already been examined by a district court on the basis of "all the evidence." Ours is second-tier review, as in Jackson v. Virginia. Our standard, therefore, must be that appropriate to a Jackson-type safety net, a final bulwark against convictions unsoundly based in evidence. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury verdict, we must ask whether any rational trier of fact could conclude that the evidence does not predominate in favor of the appellant's claim of incompetence.

Applying this standard to the evidence presented to the jury below does not yield easy results. This is, admittedly, a close case. The evidence at White's competency hearing suggests a battle between three experts, a psychiatrist and two clinical psychologists, and two lay "witnesses," the deputy sheriff present at White's arrest and his jailer of two...