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CONFLICTING PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATIONS REQUIRED A COMPETENCY HEARING, EVEN IF ONE OF THE PSYCHIATRISTS HAD CHANGED HIS OR HER MIND (THIRD DEPT).

The Third Department, over a dissent, determined a hearing was required to assess defendant’s competency to stand trial because conflicting reports from the two psychiatric evaluations. The fact that one of the psychiatrists apparently changed his or her opinion was deemed irrelevant. The matter was sent back for a reconstruction hearing:

… [T]here can be no dispute that, after receiving conflicting examination reports, County Court failed to conduct a competency hearing. Although the People rely on defense counsel’s representation that the psychiatric examiner who filed a report stating that defendant was not competent to stand trial had changed his mind, this representation and subsequent withdrawal of the request for a hearing did not relieve the court of its statutory duty to conduct a hearing pursuant to CPL 730.30 (4) for the purpose of determining defendant’s mental capacity to stand trial … . We agree with the dissent that, pursuant to CPL 730.30 (2), a competency hearing need not always be held “[w]hen the examination reports submitted to the court show that each psychiatric examiner is of the opinion that the defendant is not an incapacitated person” (emphasis added). However, we do not agree that CPL 730.30 (2) applies when the record demonstrates that the court has been provided with two conflicting examination reports, even if the defendant’s attorney represents that one of the examiners has since changed his or her opinion.

Given the circumstances present here, reconstruction of defendant’s mental capacity at the time of his violation hearing should be possible by means of “contemporaneous observation and records” … . People v Vandegrift, 2019 NY Slip Op 01854, Third Dept 3-14-19

 

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