Vargas v. Lambert

• Decision Date: 12 October 1998
• Docket Number: No. 98-99028,98-99028
• Citation: 159 F.3d 1161
• Parties: 98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 7753, 98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 7843, 98 Daily Journal D.A.R. 10,754 Katie VARGAS, on behalf of her next friend, Jeremy Vargas Sagastegui, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John LAMBERT, Superintendent, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1161

159 F.3d 1161

98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 7753, 98 Cal. Daily

Op. Serv. 7843,

98 Daily Journal D.A.R. 10,754

Katie VARGAS, on behalf of her next friend, Jeremy Vargas Sagastegui, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John LAMBERT, Superintendent, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 98-99028.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Oct. 10, 1998.

Decided Oct. 11, 1998.

Amended Oct. 12, 1998.

Bruce Livingston and Joan Fisher, Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, Moscow, ID, Todd Maybrown, Allen, Hansen, Maybrown, Seattle, Washington, Sheryl Gordon McCloud, Seattle, WA, for appellant.

John Sampson, Olympia, WA, for appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington; William Fremming Nielsen, Chief District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CT-98-00382-WFN.

Before: REINHARDT, THOMPSON and KLEINFELD, Circuit Judges.

DAVID R. THOMPSON, Circuit Judge.

Katie Vargas ("Vargas") appeals the district court's denial of her application for a stay of execution filed on behalf of her son, Jeremy Sagastegui ("Sagastegui"), a Washington state prisoner, who is scheduled to be executed on October 13, 1998. The district court held that Vargas lacked standing as Sagastegui's "next friend" and that the district court therefore lacked jurisdiction to entertain her application. The court dismissed her case, but issued a certificate of appealability to this court. ¹

We conclude that Vargas has produced sufficient new evidence pertaining to Sagastegui's alleged incompetence, not considered at the last state court competency hearing two-and-a-half years ago, to support her standing for the purposes of invoking our jurisdiction to issue a stay. Accordingly, we reverse the district court and issue a stay of execution to permit the state court to conduct a hearing to determine Sagastegui's present competency.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

A complete description of Sagastegui's offense and state court proceedings appears in State v. Sagastegui, 135 Wash.2d 67, 954 P.2d 1311 (1998). Sagastegui admitted sodomizing and killing a three-year old boy whom he was babysitting and killing the boy's mother and her friend. He testified he enjoyed the killings, and would have gone to a food court and killed more people had he not been feeling tired.

On November 22, 1995, Sagastegui was formally charged with three counts of aggravated murder in the first degree. Prior to trial, Sagastegui underwent a 15-day mental exam at Eastern State Hospital. The examining panel, consisting of a competency therapist, a clinical psychologist, and a psychiatrist, diagnosed Sagastegui as suffering from Alcohol Dependence, Episodic; Polysubstance Abuse; and Antisocial Personality Disorder with Narcissistic Features, but unequivocally concluded he was competent. Based on the examining panel's report, the trial court found Sagastegui competent to stand trial. A jury trial began on January 30, 1996. Sagastegui represented himself, assisted by advisory counsel. At the conclusion of jury selection, Sagastegui pleaded guilty to all three charges of aggravated first degree murder. At the penalty phase, Sagastegui refused to permit the introduction of any mitigating evidence. He was sentenced to death.

On March 11, 1996, the trial court considered Sagastegui's request to waive his rights to appeal and to the assistance of counsel for any review of his sentence. The trial court again considered Sagastegui's competence. The trial court questioned Sagastegui orally and reviewed his response to a written questionnaire. The court also considered testimony from mental health professionals who had previously examined Sagastegui at Eastern State Hospital. Ultimately, the trial court entered findings of fact and conclusions of law and expressly found that Sagastegui was mentally competent and able to waive his rights to appeal and to assistance of counsel. The trial court noted that Sagastegui's decision to waive his rights to appeal and to the assistance of counsel was made voluntarily, intelligently, and knowingly.

Meanwhile, David G. Grubb, M.D., a psychiatrist for the Washington State Penitentiary ("the Penitentiary"), had conducted a routine mental health evaluation of Sagastegui to determine if Sagastegui needed to continue to be kept in the Penitentiary's mental health ward. Grubb's written evaluation is dated February 21, 1996, but it was not presented to the trial court for that court's consideration at the March 1996 competency hearing. Dr. Grubb observed "no psychosis, thought disorder or paranoia" in Sagastegui. He found Sagastegui's mood inappropriate, but he determined that Sagastegui was generally coherent. He diagnosed Sagastegui as suffering from Probable Bipolar Disorder with depressive episodes; Explosive Disorder, probably related to bipolar disorder; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by history; Alcohol Abuse; Bisexual Orientation; and Probable Mixed Personality Disorder. Dr. Grubb stated no opinion about Sagastegui's competence, but concluded he did "not seem to be in need of any medication."

On May 8, 1997, Gerry S. Weber, Ph.D., a psychologist for the Penitentiary, interviewed Sagastegui for twenty minutes to assess a request by Sagastegui to live at the Penitentiary's Special Housing Unit. Dr. Weber made no diagnoses and stated no opinion as to Sagastegui's competence. He did conclude that Sagastegui "was oriented and displayed no signs of mental or emotional illness or of impaired contact with reality." Dr. Weber also reported that Sagastegui had committed some "infractions," including an episode where Sagastegui "became angered and tore up his mattress and broke his TV."

On April 30, 1998, the Supreme Court of Washington affirmed Sagastegui's sentence of death. State v. Sagastegui, 135 Wash.2d 67, 954 P.2d 1311 (Wash.1998)(en banc).

On May 7, 1998, Ronald D. Page, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist for the Penitentiary, evaluated Sagastegui "to assess possible psychosis and suicidal potential" and issued a report. Dr. Page reviewed Sagastegui's file and interviewed him for 30 minutes. He noted that Sagastegui had been prescribed Depakote and Thorazine, which decreased his emotional instability, promoted sedation, and enabled him to sleep 16 hours per day. Dr. Page conducted a standard Mental Status Evaluation on Sagastegui with the following results:

This man was unable to subtract serial 7's beyond 93. His interpretation of simple proverbs was difficult to elicit except for a correct abstraction on "look before you leap." Mr. Sagastegui seemed alert, well oriented, and attentive. His self report was satisfactorily well organized. Memory for recent and remote events was rather imprecise or general. Mood was positive, with congruent affect. Speech content appeared lucid, without apparent thought disorder. Mr. Sagastegui denied suicidal/assaultive ideation claiming, "that would be kind of silly since the State's going to do it for me." Insight may be partial and judgment highly questionable.

Dr. Page diagnosed Sagastegui as suffering from Atypical Psychosis, now in remission; Alcohol Abuse, now in remission; and Personality Disorder NOS. He determined Sagastegui's Global Assessment of Functioning ("GAF") score to be 55. ² Dr. Page concluded that Sagastegui's "current psychotropic regime" should be continued because he could be emotionally unstable if deprived of his medication and stated that he "reportedly decompensates to near psychosis without psychotropics, hence he is at risk of decompensation at anytime when medication may be refused or discontinued." Dr. Page offered no opinion as to Sagastegui's competence. Dr. Page concluded his report by noting that a prognosis was "a moot issue considering [Sagastegui's] pending death sentence. For the remainder of his lifetime I find no reason to expect significant change from his current fragile/tenuous reality contact and ongoing potential for regression to atypical psychosis."

In a report dated September 22, 1998, A. Steven Frankel, Ph.D., J.D., a clinical psychologist specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder ("DID"), indicated he had reviewed the reports of the mental health experts who had examined Sagastegui and testified at the state court's March 11, 1996 hearing. Dr. Frankel stated that DID, which was formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is a difficult disorder to diagnose and that the possibility that Sagastegui suffers from DID "has apparently not even been addressed, much less ruled out." He opined that many of the observations in Sagastegui's prior competency reports "could reflect the presence of DID." Dr. Frankel strongly recommended a full and complete evaluation of Sagastegui to rule out the possibility that he suffers from DID.

On September 23, 1998, Katie Vargas, Sagastegui's mother, filed a motion in the Washington Supreme Court to participate as her son's next friend, and to file a personal restraint petition on his behalf.

On September 26, 1998, G. Christian Harris, M.D., reviewed Sagastegui's file and interviewed him for two hours at the request of the State of Washington's Attorney General's Office. Dr. Harris did not conduct a Mental Status Exam or any other psychological testing. In a report dated September 28, 1998, Dr. Harris diagnosed Sagastegui as suffering from only an Antisocial Personality. Dr. Harris detected some signs of depression but concluded "this depression is related to his lifestyle." Dr. Harris found "no evidence that [Sagastegui's] mental disorders are impacting his decision making in the legal processes involved in his pleading guilty and his decision to not appeal his death sentence." Dr. Harris noted:

Some might question [my finding that Sagastegui is competent and suffers from no mental disorder that is interfering with his ability to evaluate his situation and make appropriate decisions] from the standpoint that there is evidence in the record that...