Ninth Circuit Rules It Is a Violation of the Sixth Amendment for Counsel to Present an Insanity Defense Against the Will of the Defendant
In United States v. Read, 918 F.3d 712 (9th Cir. 2019), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit considered whether the district court committed a reversible error by permitting defense counsel to present a defense of insanity despite the defendant's clear rejection of that defense. The Ninth Circuit ruled that the district court committed a reversible error and reversed the judgment and remanded his case to the lower court.
Facts of the Case
Jonathan Lee Read was serving a sentence for attempted robbery in a federal correction institute. During his incarceration, he stabbed his cellmate 13 times with a homemade knife. When detained, Mr. Read claimed he had no memory of the attack. He was charged with one count each of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to do bodily harm and assault with a deadly weapon resulting in serious bodily injury.
Mr. Read received an evaluation of his competency upon the motion of his appointed counsel. Lesli Johnson, PhD, a forensic psychologist, issued a report diagnosing Mr. Read with schizophrenia and severe cannabis use disorder. Based on Dr. Johnson's report, the court found Mr. Read incompetent to stand trial and ordered him committed for treatment and restoration; four months later he was found competent to stand trial.
Mr. Read's counsel arranged for examination by John R. Walker III, PsyD, to assess his state of mind at the time of the alleged assault. Dr. Walker opined that Mr. Read's psychosis rendered him unable to form criminal intent at the time of his crime.
Mr. Read's counsel filed a Notice of Insanity Defense. In response, the government requested an examination of Mr. Read, which the court granted. Sumandeep Kaur, a doctoral psychology intern, under the supervision of forensic psychologist Angela Walden Weaver, PhD, issued a report concluding that Mr. Read had schizotypal personality disorder and cannabis use disorder, and that Mr. Read was able to appreciate the nature, quality, and wrongfulness of his alleged criminal acts at the time of the alleged offense.
Mr. Read successfully moved to proceed without counsel following a Faretta hearing, a process to assess a defendant's ability to forgo his right to counsel “knowingly and intelligently” as defined by Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975). At a pretrial conference, he abandoned his insanity defense in favor of a defense based on demonic possession. Mr. Read reported that he would call Dr. Walker, the neuropsychologist who had opined that Mr. Read was insane at the time of the alleged assault, despite his wish to not pursue an insanity defense. The court responded that Dr. Walker's testimony would not be relevant to Mr. Read's defense.
The court asked Mr. Read's standby counsel if he had any concerns about Mr. Read's competence to proceed without counsel, and the concern was raised that Mr. Read did not seem to understand the legal distinction between a defense of insanity and his proposed defense.
As the court considered whether Mr. Read's standby counsel should be reappointed, the standby counsel explained that he would present an insanity defense if reappointed; he noted that the very reason that Mr. Read had wanted to proceed pro se in the first place was because he did not want an insanity defense.
Over Mr. Read's objection, the district court reappointed the standby counsel as Mr. Read's attorney. The court noted, “[T]he Constitution permits [judges] to insist upon representation by counsel for those competent enough to stand trial[,] … but who still suffer from severe mental illness to the point where they are not competent to conduct trial proceedings by themselves” (Read, p 716). The court found that Mr. Read's “beliefs are bizarre and his representation will be wholly ineffective,” because “[h]is anticipated defense, that he is possessed by demons and that other inmates are also possessed, is not a legal defense and is based on his bizarre beliefs” (Read, p 716). Despite these comments, at no point did the district court revisit Mr. Read's competency. Mr. Read's counsel unsuccessfully presented an insanity defense at trial, and Mr. Read was convicted and sentenced to concurrent 82-month terms.
Ruling and Reasoning
The Ninth Circuit considered two main questions. First, did the district court err by permitting counsel to present an insanity defense? And, second, did the district court err by appointing counsel?
The Ninth Circuit considered Mr. Read's claim that the district court violated his Sixth Amendment right to present a defense of his own choosing by terminating self-representation and permitting counsel to make an insanity defense. The court ruled that the district court committed a reversible error by permitting defense counsel to present a defense of insanity over a competent defendant's clear rejection of that defense.
The Ninth Circuit acknowledged the difficulty of deciding whether to permit a defendant, deemed both competent to stand trial and to waive his right to counsel, but clearly mentally ill, to eschew a plausible defense of insanity in favor of one based in delusion and certain to fail. Nonetheless, the Ninth Circuit reasoned that Mr. Read's Sixth Amendment rights were violated when the trial judge permitted counsel to present an insanity defense against Mr. Read's clear objection, citing McCoy v. Louisiana, 138 S. Ct. 1500 (2018), a case which had not been decided until after Mr. Read filed his opening brief in his appeal. McCoy affirmed a defendant's autonomy to determine the objectives of a defense by suggesting that counsel cannot impose an insanity defense on a non-consenting defendant and that an insanity defense is tantamount to a concession of guilt.
The Ninth Circuit also reasoned that the defendant retains “ultimate authority to make certain fundamental decisions regarding the case, as to whether to plead guilty, waive a jury, testify in his or her own behalf, or take an appeal” (Read, p 720, citing Jones v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745 (1983)). The government argued there is no right to refuse an insanity defense beyond the McCoy right to maintain factual innocence. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, stating that pleading insanity has grave personal implications beyond its functional equivalence to a guilty plea, including depriving the defendant of the choice to avoid contradicting his own deeply-held personal belief that he is sane, as well as risking confinement in an institution and the social stigma associated with an assertion or adjudication of insanity.
The court also considered whether the district court erred by reappointing counsel. Mr. Read argued that the district court should not have revoked his pro se status on the basis of Indiana v. Edwards, 554 U.S. 164 (2008). The Ninth Circuit disagreed, stating the district court used the proper standard with Edwards and did not abuse its discretion by reappointing counsel.
Discussion
The Sixth Amendment clearly articulates the due process rights of criminal defendants, including the right to proceed pro se and to assistance of counsel. On the first matter, Indiana v. Edwards established that trial competency is a lower bar than that required to proceed pro se, a decision that settled the matter for the Ninth Circuit. Regarding assistance of counsel, the historical paternalism of the judicial system toward those afflicted by mental illness is reflected in cases such as Whalem v. United States, 346 F.2d 812 (D.C. Cir 1965). Read deviates from Whalem, which justified use of the insanity defense over a defendant's objection because of society's interests in avoiding the conviction of a morally blameless person; instead, Read aligns more with the decision in Frendak v. United States, 408 A.2d 364 (D.C. 1979).
In Frendak, the question centered on a trial court imposing an insanity defense against a defendant's will, while in Read, it was the defense counsel doing so. Both courts found that a defendant can competently refuse to raise an insanity defense, despite the presence of mental illness and the defendant's sanity at the time of the crime being in question. It is noteworthy that in Read the court enforced an insanity defense bolstered by the report of a forensic expert.
The Ninth Circuit noted several reasons behind their decision in Read, similar to those noted in Frendak, including that a defendant may wish to avoid the stigma associated with a mental disorder as well as an emphasis on the defendant's retaining ultimate authority to make fundamental decisions regarding the case and bear the consequences of any such decision.
Read builds upon Frendak in emphasizing an individual's freedom to reject the insanity plea, establishing that defense counsel practicing in the Ninth Circuit may need to formally assess a defendant's capacity to reject an insanity defense before overriding the client's wishes. In such instances, it is highly likely that forensic experts will be relied upon to provide opinions on this specific question of capacity.
- © 2020 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
