Rhay v. White, 21328.

Decision Date28 November 1967
Docket NumberNo. 21328.,21328.
Citation385 F.2d 883
PartiesB. J. RHAY, Superintendent, Washington State Penitentiary, Appellant, v. Don Anthony WHITE, Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

John J. O'Connell, Atty. Gen., Olympia, Wash., Charles O. Carroll, King County Pros. Atty., Seattle, Wash., Stephen Way, Olympia, Wash. (argued), for appellant.

Young, Huff & Regan, James C. Young (argued), Seattle, Wash., R. Max Etter (argued), Spokane, Wash., Weyer, Sandelin, Sterne & Gaskill, David A. Weyer (argued), Seattle, Wash., for appellee.

Before JOHNSEN,* BARNES and ELY, Circuit Judges.

JOHNSEN, Circuit Judge.

We affirm the District Court's order in habeas corpus directing that appellee White be released from confinement by the Superintendent of the Washington State Penitentiary unless the State of Washington grants him a new trial within 120 days.

White is under conviction and sentence for two offenses of murder committed on the same day and made the subject of trial together. On the first slaying he was found guilty of murder in the first degree and given a death sentence, and on the second he was found guilty of murder in the second degree and given a life sentence.

The judgments were affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State of Washington in State v. White, 60 Wash.2d 551, 374 P.2d 942, and thereafter White unsuccessfully engaged in collateral attack on various grounds and exhausted his state remedies in respect thereto. See White v. Rhay, 64 Wash.2d 15, 390 P.2d 535, 537, and White v. Rhay, 65 Wash.2d 711, 399 P.2d 522.

Only one of these grounds is involved in the appeal here, since it was on this single basis that the District Court granted the writ. That ground is whether on the elements before the trial court the situation presented such a substantial question of possible doubt as to White's competency to stand trial that due process demanded that the court should have held a hearing and made a determination of the question. No request was made by counsel for such a hearing and the court engaged in none. On White's habeas corpus attack before the Washington Supreme Court, that Court disposed of the matter on the summary basis that it could not find from White's testimony on the trial that "he was unable to effectively assist his counsel in the defense of the cause" and that on the complete record "we hold the * * * ground * * * to be without merit".

A claim that one has been convicted while he was without competency to stand trial, which has not had previous adjudication, is not ordinarily subject to disposition without an evidentiary hearing, unless it can be held to be wholly devoid of any substance, not on the basis of exercised judgment but as a matter of clear legal frivolousness. But beyond this, the situation here was in any event one, as in Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402, 80 S.Ct. 788, 4 L.Ed.2d 824, where elements were involved that were beyond the information of the trial record, as the hearing held by the District Court clearly demonstrates.

These elements, such as White's attitude, actions and other psychological aspects not shown by the record, when coupled with and viewed in the light of some of the testimony brought out on the trial as to his history of chronic mental disturbances, paranoid traits, violent behavioral explosions and previous institutional diagnoses, from the time he was a boy to his commission at age 22 of the murders involved, were such as in our opinion to entitle the District Court to conclude, as it did, that on the whole situation "there were facts before the court of such substantial significance as should have compelled the trial court, upon its own motion and upon its own initiative, to have recessed the trial and conducted a hearing upon the question of whether the petitioner was mentally competent to give aid and assistance to his counsel and participate in his own defense".

Part of the psychiatric testimony at the trial had been to the effect that White had such paranoid traits as to make him unable to trust people. With relevance as to this, there was testimony at the hearing before the District Court that for the most part White had sat rigid during the course of the trial, manifestative, as the witness put it, that, in concern about the trial itself, "he just wasn't there". One of his counsel, both of whom were court appointed, testified that communication between them had been difficult. A defense psychiatrist who had sat in the courtroom and observed White because of an apprehensiveness from his previous diagnosis that, in the focus which White's paranoid faculties could make, his volatile nature might cause him to erupt explosively against someone in the courtroom, testified before the District Court that White's rigidity during the trial represented a state of mental tension and stress and that "he was barely in control of himself". The witness testified further that from talking with White he felt that White had become imbued with hatred toward the prosecuting attorney, which "I don't think had very much to do with the trial itself" but which primarily was prompted by the fact that "he felt that the prosecutor was laughing at him at times". One of White's counsel testified that he had complained that the prosecutor's loud voice bothered him and that he was thereupon moved to another seat "for fear that he would break loose". Counsel further testified that three or four times during the trial it had been necessary to request a special recess because of White's indication to him that "he couldn't take it anymore", and that on these occasions they would engage in walking 15 or 20 minutes in the hall before returning to the courtroom.

The record shows that at the time of the first of these recess requests White's counsel had informed the trial...

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  • Com. v. Robidoux
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
    • December 4, 2007
    ...doubt as to [a defendant's] competency to stand trial." Commonwealth v. Hill, supra at 54, 375 N.E.2d 1168, quoting Rhay v. White, 385 F.2d 883, 886 (9th Cir.1967). The evidence in this case does not raise a "substantial question of possible doubt" on the issue of competency. Robidoux discu......
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