Coleman v. State

• Decision Date: 24 October 2013
• Docket Number: No. 2009–CT–01350–SCT.,2009–CT–01350–SCT.
• Parties: Patrick COLEMAN v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

127 So.3d 161

Patrick COLEMAN

v.STATE of Mississippi.

No. 2009–CT–01350–SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Oct. 24, 2013.

Patrick Coleman, pro se.

Office of the Attorney General by Ladonna C. Holland, Scott Stuart, attorneys for appellee.

EN BANC.

KITCHENS, Justice, for the Court:

¶ 1. The motion for rehearing is granted. The original opinions are withdrawn, and these opinions are substituted therefor.

¶ 2. More than two years after his trial, Patrick Coleman was ordered to a retrospective mental competency hearing by the Court of Appeals because he erroneously had been denied a pretrial competency hearing by the Lauderdale County Circuit Court. Finding that the nunc pro tunc competency hearing did not adequately protect Coleman's due process rights and the procedural guarantees of Uniform Rule of Circuit and County Court Practice 9.06, we reverse the decisions of the Court of Appeals and the Lauderdale County Circuit Court and remand the case to the latter court for a new trial consistent with this decision.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 3. The facts surrounding the death of Frederick Pruitt are gleaned from the record. The testimony of Kimberly Watts provides the following account of relevant events. On November 28, 2007, Patrick Coleman approached Watts's apartment. A number of Watts's friends, including Frederick Pruitt, were inside the apartment, preparing to play dominos. According to Watts, she saw Coleman and another man, both armed, running toward the house. Coleman demanded that Pruitt come out of the apartment. Watts testified that, when Pruitt refused to come out, Coleman entered the apartment and shot at Pruitt. A bullet struck Pruitt in the forehead and killed him. Watts stated that Coleman told her to call 911 and then waited outside the apartment for police to arrive.

¶ 4. Before trial, on November 24, 2008, Coleman filed a “Motion for Psychiatric Examination and/or Treatment.” The trial court granted the motion in an effort to determine whether Coleman was mentally competent to stand trial and to ascertain his mental state at the time Pruitt was killed. The trial was continued several times while Coleman awaited his examination. The trial court granted a final continuance on March 24, 2009, setting the trial for June 1, 2009. At the time of the final continuance and scheduling of the trial for a day certain, no mental evaluation had been performed.

¶ 5. Coleman's psychological and psychiatric evaluation occurred on April 1, 2009, at the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield. The interview took approximately two hours. It was conducted by two state psychologists and a state psychiatrist, who prepared for it by reviewing Coleman's police records, his statement to police following his arrest, his psychiatric records from previous mental health treatment at three different hospitals, his school records, and information obtained from the jail staff where he was incarcerated. A four-page summary report of Coleman's evaluation was filed with the circuit court on May 18, 2009, two weeks before his scheduled trial. It noted that Coleman had been diagnosed with several psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, depression, intermittent explosive disorder, and personality disorder. He also had suffered from “alcohol abuse and cannabis abuse disorders.” However, the report concluded that Coleman possessed “the sufficient present ability to consult with his attorney to a reasonable degree of rational understanding in the preparation of his defense, and that he had a rational as well as a factual understanding of the nature and object of the legal proceedings against him.” The evaluators also determined that, at the time of the crime, “Coleman was not experiencing symptoms of a major mental illness.”

¶ 6. Coleman's trial commenced on June 1, 2009. At that time, the summary report was the only information regarding the evaluation that had been received by the trial court and the attorneys for the prosecution and the defense. The following is taken from the Court of Appeals opinion in Coleman v. State, 127 So.3d 236, 237 (Miss.2012).

On the morning of June 1, 2009, Coleman's counsel ... requested a continuance, asserting that Coleman was entitled to a full competency hearing and that she needed time to subpoena witnesses who would testify as to Coleman's competency. She also wanted to cross-examine the physician who made the mental-evaluation report on Coleman. In response, the trial judge questioned why defense counsel had waited until the morning of trial after the jury had been qualified to request a competency hearing, when the defense had received the mental-evaluation report approximately ten days prior to trial. The trial judge concluded that the issue was waived....

On the second morning of trial, defense counsel again raised the issue of competency. She filed a motion for a mistrial and a reinstatement of the request for a competency hearing pursuant to Uniform Rule of Circuit and County Court 9.06, but the motion was denied. Attached to the motion was an affidavit from Coleman's wife stating that her husband “suffers from many mental problems,” and before the incident, he “had been seeing invisible people and talking to himself for over a week”; he “was out of his medication and was becoming more and more uncontrollable.” Also attached was an affidavit by defense counsel insisting that Coleman was incompetent to stand trial.

Coleman testified in his own defense, stating that he meant only to scare Pruitt and not to shoot him, and that he blanked out before the second shot was fired. The trial court denied a jury instruction on the lesser-included offense of manslaughter. Coleman was convicted of deliberate design murder and sentenced to life in prison. After the trial, in a motion for new trial or judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV), counsel for Coleman again argued that Rule 9.06 required a competency hearing that Coleman erroneously had been denied.

At the hearing on the post-trial motion, defense counsel ... introduced into evidence Coleman's full mental evaluation from Whitfield, which Coleman's attorney had only obtained the day before. Defense counsel explained that she had not requested a competency hearing before trial because it was her understanding that once the court orders the defendant to submit to a psychiatric examination under Rule 9.06, the court must conduct a hearing. The trial court did not accept defense counsel's reasoning and maintained that all of the information that was presented indicated Coleman was competent to stand trial. The trial court denied the motion for a new trial or JNOV.

Id. at 239. Further, the trial court gave no indication that it had reviewed the full report in denying Coleman's request for a rehearing. Id. at n. 1.

¶ 7. On appeal, the Court of Appeals correctly found that Coleman had been entitled to a competency hearing pursuant to Rule 9.06. See id. However, rather than reversing and remanding for a new trial, the Court of Appeals determined that there was “sufficient evidence to make a meaningful retrospective competency determination.” Id. In September 2011, a retrospective competency hearing was held in the trial court, at which the parties were permitted to present evidence regarding Coleman's competency to stand trial, or his lack thereof, in June of 2009.¹ Coleman presented almost no evidence to support his assertion that he had been mentally incompetent at the time of trial. Besides asking the trial court to take judicial notice of the facts of the case and Coleman's demeanor during trial, the State called no witnesses and presented no evidence. The one piece of evidence that was admitted was a copy of the four-page summary report from Whitfield. For unknown reasons, counsel for Coleman at the nunc pro tunc hearing did not introduce, and the court did not consider, the full twenty-nine-page mental competency report. The trial court found that Coleman had been mentally competent to stand trial in June of 2009. The Court of Appeals found no error and affirmed that determination. Coleman also raised an ineffective assistance of counsel claim on appeal, but the Court of Appeals declined to address it, finding that it would be more appropriate in a post-conviction-relief context. Coleman petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari, claiming that he was entitled to a new trial rather than a retrospective competency hearing. We granted that petition.

ANALYSIS

¶ 8. In order to be deemed mentally competent to stand trial, a defendant must have “the sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding ... and ... a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him.” Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402, 402, 80 S.Ct. 788, 788–89, 4 L.Ed.2d 824, 825 (1960) (per curiam). Rule 9.06 governs the procedure for a determination of mental competency in Mississippi. It provides that:

If before or during trial the court, of its own motion or upon motion of an attorney, has reasonable ground to believe that the defendant is incompetent to stand trial, the court shall order the defendant to submit to a mental examination by some competent psychiatrist selected by the court....

After the examination the court shall conduct a hearing to determine if the defendant is competent to stand trial. After hearing all the evidence, the court shall weigh the evidence and make a determination of whether the defendant is competent to stand trial. If the court finds that the defendant is competent to stand trial, then the court shall make the finding a matter of record and the case will then proceed to trial.

URCCC 9.06 (emphasis added).

¶ 9. Although Rule 9.06 mandates a competency hearing after a psychiatric evaluationis conducted, this Court held in one case that a hearing does not necessarily have to take place as long as “the purposes of Rule 9.06[a]re satisfied.”...