Substantial Evidence of Mental Incompetence

Facts of the Case

On January 31, 2006, police responded to a call for service at the home of Julie and Paul Rogers, who had been fatally wounded. Mr. Rogers identified his brother-in-law, Matthew Wycoff, as their assailant and died soon afterward. The police arrested Mr. Wycoff later that day and interviewed him the following day. In the interview, Mr. Wycoff confessed to stabbing and killing Julie and Paul Rogers and to planning their murders in advance because he believed they were “really bad, rotten people.” Mr. Wycoff underwent several changes in representation while awaiting trial. He had disagreements with two of his lead attorneys, Daniel Cook (who resigned shortly after Mr. Wycoff attempted to replace him via a Marsden motion; People v. Marsden, 465 P.2d 44 (Cal. 1970)) and Roberto Najera (who Mr. Wycoff tried to replace via another Marsden motion). Mr. Wycoff then sought to represent himself and filed a Faretta motion, explaining he was using the motion to remove Mr. Najera from his case. The Faretta motion was denied. Two months later, Mr. Najera resigned and was replaced by a new attorney. Mr. Wycoff filed another Faretta motion. Mr. Wycoff’s stated rationale for the motion was that his attorneys were not respecting him, and he would punish them with self-sabotaging behaviors.

At this point, the trial court assigned a forensic psychologist, Paul Good, PhD, to evaluate Mr. Wycoff’s competence to represent himself at trial. Dr. Good diagnosed Mr. Wycoff with severe mental illness, most probably schizophrenia. Dr. Good noted that while he demonstrated an adequate understanding of the legal proceedings, Mr. Wycoff was unable to rationally consult with counsel because of the symptoms of his mental disorder (including paranoia, grandiosity, and impaired judgment). Although Dr. Good was appointed to evaluate Mr. Wycoff’s competence to represent himself, he opined that Mr. Wycoff was not competent to stand trial. In November 2008, the trial court granted Mr. Wycoff’s Faretta motion after considering Dr. Good’s report and the court’s own observations of Mr. Wycoff. On September 10, 2009, during preparation for jury selection, the prosecutor asked the court to address its implicit finding of competence in light of Dr. Good’s opinion. The court commented that Mr. Wycoff’s in-court behavior had not provided any reason to question his competence to represent himself or his competence to stand trial. After taking two recesses to review the record and Dr. Good’s report, the court repeated the beliefs articulated earlier.

During the guilt phase of his jury trial, Mr. Wycoff represented himself and admitted to murdering Julie and Paul Rogers, characterizing them as bad people and himself as a hero. He was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. During the penalty phase, Mr. Wycoff made inappropriate jokes, praised himself for the murders, portrayed himself as a victim, and introduced into evidence homemade video recordings of his escapades. In his closing argument, Mr. Wycoff repeated the above themes and threatened the prosecutor. The jury sentenced him to death. During sentencing, Mr. Wycoff continued to joke, read graphic poetry, and implied he lied during earlier testimony. The trial court commented “that [defendant] has at all times demonstrated that he is competent to stand trial and has been competent to stand trial and to waive his right to counsel” (Wycoff, p 803).

Ruling and Reasoning

The Supreme Court of California previously ruled in People v. Rodas, 429 P.3d 1122 (Cal. 2018), that if presented with substantial evidence of the defendant’s mental incompetence, the trial court must declare a doubt and initiate an inquiry, regardless of the source of the substantial evidence or other sources of evidence (including the court’s own observations) that may suggest the defendant is competent. This was consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375 (1966), which held that a competency hearing is required once substantial evidence of incompetence exists, regardless of the defendant’s behavior in court. The court also referenced its prior ruling in People v. Lewis, 140 P.3d 775 (Cal. 2006), which held the opinion of a qualified expert who had sufficient opportunity to examine the defendant and testifies under oath regarding the defendant’s mental incompetence satisfied the requirements of substantial evidence.

The California Supreme Court was convinced that Dr. Good’s examination and report, containing an uncontradicted opinion that Mr. Wycoff was not competent to stand trial because of his inability to cooperate with counsel, constituted substantial evidence of his mental incompetence. The court found the trial court failed to satisfy the procedural requirements of Cal. Penal Code § 1368(a) (2015) by not initiating an inquiry when Dr. Good’s report was provided and erred once more a year later by not appointing counsel and initiating competency proceedings when the question of his mental incompetence was raised while Mr. Wycoff was representing himself. The court found the two brief hearings held by the trial court related to Dr. Good’s report did not satisfy the procedural requirements for a competency hearing, as outlined by Cal. Penal Code § 1369, which under most circumstances, requires the appointment of one or two mental health experts and a jury trial.

The court referenced Godinez v. Moran, 509 U.S. 389 (1993), in which the U.S. Supreme Court established that competence to stand trial and competence to waive counsel were governed by the same standards. The court considered the argument that a defendant seeking to waive counsel does not require the ability to consult with counsel. The court held that to waive counsel, a defendant must be able to consult with counsel to understand and reason through the decision. The court further held that Mr. Wycoff’s decision to waive counsel, his contentious relationships with counsel, and the symptoms of his mental disorder were directly related.

The court declined to make a conditional reversal to consider the feasibility of a retrospective competency trial. The court referenced cases in which judgment was reversed and no retrospective competency hearing was ordered due to the difficulty of determining past competency, such as Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375 (1966), and Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162 (1975). The court noted thirteen years had passed since Mr. Wycoff’s trial, and there were insufficient records to reasonably place him in a comparable position to when he was originally tried. The court ruled that a retrospective competency trial, in which the defendant bears the burden of proof, would violate Mr. Wycoff’s due process rights.

The California Supreme Court reversed the conviction and sentence, noting that Mr. Wycoff may be retried if he is found mentally competent. If he again sought to represent himself, the trial court had the discretion to deny such a request.

Discussion

People v. Wycoff contributes to case law on the procedural rules in place to protect the due process rights of mentally incompetent criminal defendants. While the U.S. Supreme Court has defined the concepts of competency to stand trial and other criminal competencies, the exact procedures for ensuring constitutionally appropriate competency requirements have largely been deferred to the states’ discretion. In Pate v. Robinson, the Court simply wrote “state procedures must be adequate to protect this right” (Pate, p 378). The court’s ruling in Wycoff emphasizes the accountability and responsibility of trial courts in California to follow the statutory requirements for competency proceedings, as established by Cal. Penal Code § 1368(a), § 1369 and further articulated through case law. Most jurisdictions have similar procedural rules governing competency proceedings, but the laws vary from state to state. Forensic psychiatrists should familiarize themselves with the specific procedures of the jurisdictions in which they practice.

In Wycoff, the Supreme Court of California detailed the strengths of Dr. Good’s report, which enhanced his credibility and the court’s readiness to accept his conclusions as substantial evidence of mental incompetence. The court acknowledged that, in a different case, it previously found the opinion of a different psychologist to be “inherently unreliable” based on the evaluator’s reputation, the insufficient factual basis for the conclusions, and the evaluator’s failure to consider contradictory evidence (Wycoff, p 807). The Supreme Court of California favorably reviewed Dr. Good’s detailed description of the evaluation procedures, extensive interview, thorough psychiatric history and mental status exam, appropriate use of psychological testing, and detailed reasoning that addressed Mr. Wycoff’s strengths, the specific impairment on which he concluded Mr. Wycoff was not competent to stand trial, and the relationship between his impairment and mental disorder. This speaks to the importance of the expert’s credibility and the need for forensic psychiatrists to conduct and document the rigorousness of the assessment employed by the expert to reach a conclusion in competency to stand trial determinations.