Lokos v. Capps

• Decision Date: 18 September 1980
• Docket Number: No. 79-2771,79-2771
• Citation: 625 F.2d 1258
• Parties: Dezso John LOKOS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Walter CAPPS, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1258

625 F.2d 1258

Dezso John LOKOS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Walter CAPPS, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 79-2771.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Sept. 18, 1980.

Richard H. Gill, Montgomery, Ala. (Court-appointed), for petitioner-appellant.

Elizabeth Evans Campbell, Asst. Atty. Gen., Montgomery, Ala., for respondent-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Before GOLDBERG, GARZA and REAVLEY, Circuit Judges.

REAVLEY, Circuit Judge:

On the night of December 13, 1963 Dezso John Lokos invaded the home of Leonard H. Culpepper, bound him and shot him dead, and dumped his body into a well. Lokos was tried and sentenced by the Alabama court first to death but then commuted to life imprisonment. Further information about the crime, its repulsive perpetrator, and the 16 year old legal enterprise concerning his disposition, may be found elsewhere. ¹ Our concern at this point is the competency of Lokos to stand trial in 1964. We now hold that the constitutional requirements of Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 86 S.Ct. 836, 15 L.Ed.2d 815 (1966), were not satisfied, and we hold that the record before the federal trial court establishes that Lokos was incompetent to be tried. The relief sought by the petitioner is finally granted.

I. THE ALABAMA TRIAL COURT (1964)

The homicide occurred near Linden, Alabama on December 13, 1963. Less than a week later Lokos was apprehended in Texas. He was returned to Alabama and charged with murder in the first degree; the trial was set for February 27, 1964. In advance of trial the appointed attorney for Lokos moved for a psychiatric examination. ² The Alabama court conducted a hearing on the motion. Four law enforcement officers who had seen and talked to the accused during his confinement testified that they considered him sane. A medical doctor, not trained in psychiatry or psychology, who had talked to Lokos for 30 minutes and who had not considered any of his history of mental illness, testified that Lokos "acted sane" and knew "right from wrong". Lokos himself testified about his history of prior psychiatric commitments and treatments.

Counsel for Lokos offered in evidence a three page letter that he had received from the director of the Winnebago State Hospital of Wisconsin which summarized Lokos' life history, including his institutionalizations, escapes and treatments. The letter advised that the entire record of Lokos was not being reproduced and mailed because it ran well over 100 pages. Highlights of the letter: Lokos entered the state hospital on July 25, 1953 under a mentally ill commitment signed by the judge of Racine County, Wisconsin. He was conditionally released on October 24, 1953 and was returned from conditional release on January 19, 1954. His diagnosis on all admissions was "Schizophrenic Reaction, Paranoid Type" and while in the hospital Lokos received both insulin shock and electro-shock therapy. "During much of the time that he was in the hospital he got along very poorly and had feelings of being persecuted here. After leaving the hospital he continued under the care of a psychiatrist in his home community." Lokos left the hospital on a conditional release in August of 1955. The letter concluded "The long-term prognosis in this case was not very good although there was not very much evidence of an active psychotic process at the time that the boy left this hospital."

The state trial judge refused to admit the letter into the evidence and apparently because it was hearsay refused to consider it for any purpose. This was probably the determinative error of the trial judge. Indicia of a defendant's incompetence to be tried, sufficient to raise a doubt so as to require the judge to make further inquiry, need not be presented in a formal motion nor argued by defense counsel nor be presented to the judge in the form of admissible evidence. Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 86 S.Ct. 836, 15 L.Ed.2d 815 (1966); Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162, 95 S.Ct. 896, 43 L.Ed.2d 103 (1975). The Alabama law is in accord. Lokos v. State, 278 Ala. 586, 179 So.2d 714, 718 (1965); Buttram v. State, 338 So.2d 1062, 1064 (Cr.App.Ala.1976).

Following the hearing, the state trial judge overruled the motion of the defendant and said: "The court is not satisfied from the evidence submitted that the defendant was insane or that there is sufficient evidence presented to the court to even indicate insanity."

When the trial began a week later, counsel for the defendant again asked that there be examination by an expert of the defendant, and the letter from the superintendent of the Wisconsin state hospital was again offered. The trial judge allowed the letter to be identified and included in the record but would not allow it to be read or admitted into evidence, saying "It is the same letter which has been heretofore presented to the court in another matter, and the court is familiar with it." The judge further overruled the motion for the appointment of a psychiatrist to examine Lokos.

II. CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES

A. The Substantive Right

Constitutional due process requires that trial of an accused may be conducted only when he is legally competent. Bishop v. United States, 350 U.S. 961, 76 S.Ct. 440, 100 L.Ed. 835 (1956). In Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402, 80 S.Ct. 788, 4 L.Ed.2d 824 (1960), the Supreme Court wrote that the test for determining defendant's mental competency depends upon:

(W)hether 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 factual understanding of the proceeding against him. Id. at 402, 80 S.Ct. at 789.

One who has been convicted may collaterally attack that conviction by proving his incompetency at the time of the trial by a preponderance of the evidence. He is entitled to an evidentiary hearing for that purpose when he makes a showing by clear and convincing evidence to raise threshold doubt about his competency. Zapata v. Estelle, 585 F.2d 750 (5th Cir. 1978).

B. The Procedural Guarantee

State procedures must be adequate to insure the right to be tried while competent. Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 86 S.Ct. 836, 15 L.Ed.2d 815 (1966). A court must sua sponte conduct an inquiry into a defendant's mental capacity if the evidence raises a bona fide doubt as to the defendant's competency at that time. Id.; Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162, 95 S.Ct. 896, 43 L.Ed.2d 103 (1975).

A "Pate violation is a procedural error by the trial court and it may occur only in the time frame encompassed by the trial itself and immediately related proceedings. . . . It is always open for the defendant to later assert his actual incompetence at trial in a subsequent collateral proceeding, but the substantive claim should not be confused with a defendant's procedural rights under Pate to a hearing whenever a bona fide doubt as to competence surfaces at trial." Reese v. Wainright, 600 F.2d 1085, 1093 (5th Cir. 1979); Zapata v. Estelle, 588 F.2d 1017 (5th Cir. 1979).

The habeas corpus petitioner's burden to prevail on a Pate violation is different from the one stated above for the substantive claim. The complaint that a Pate procedural guarantee was violated is that, in the light of what was then known to the trial court, the failure to make further inquiry into defendant's competence to stand trial denied him a fair trial. Drope, 420 U.S. at 174, 95 S.Ct. at 905. The test is an objective one. Pedrero v. Wainright, 590 F.2d 1383 (5th Cir. 1979). The question is: Did the trial judge receive information which, objectively considered, should reasonably have raised a doubt about defendant's competency and alerted him to the possibility that the defendant could neither understand the proceedings or appreciate their significance, nor rationally aid his attorney in his defense. "While the Supreme Court has not articulated a general standard for the nature or quantum of evidence necessary to trigger a competency procedure, it has focused on three factors that should be considered: the existence of a history of irrational behavior, defendant's demeanor at trial, and a prior medical opinion." Chenault v. Stynchombe, 546 F.2d 1191, 1192-93 (5th Cir. 1977), citing Drope 420 U.S. at 180, 95 S.Ct. at 908. Even one of these factors, standing alone, may, in appropriate circumstances, be sufficient "the question is often a difficult one in which a wide range of manifestations and subtle nuances are implicated." Drope, 420 U.S. at 180, 95 S.Ct. at 908.

If it is decided in the collateral attack that the original trial court committed a Pate violation, the question then becomes whether a hearing can now be adequately held to determine retrospectively the petitioner's competency as of the time of his trial. If the state does not convince the court that the tools of rational decision are now available, the writ should be granted. If a meaningful hearing can be held nunc pro tunc, then it proceeds with petitioner bearing the burden of proving his incompetency by a preponderance of the evidence. Martin v. Estelle, 546 F.2d 177 (5th Cir. 1977); Lee v. Alabama, 386 F.2d 97 (5th Cir. 1967).

III. PROCEEDINGS IN THE FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT

During the three occasions when this case has been before the federal district court it has considered both the substantive and procedural contentions of petitioner Lokos, and it has rejected all of them. The district court concluded that the Alabama state trial court complied with procedural due process and that no bona fide doubt was raised of the competency of Lokos to be tried. The inquiry made by the Alabama trial court was, in the view of the district court, a reasonable one; and the constitutional requirements were satisfied and no further investigation or hearing needed to have been made.

The federal judge further held a hearing in 1977 on the substantive question of...