Huey R. Lee v. State of Alabama

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING

Appellant’s motion for rehearing is denied.1 He contends that the court failed to give application to the case of Pate v. Robinson, 1966, 383 U.S. 375, 86 S.Ct. 836, 15 L.Ed.2d 815, which holds that the conviction of an accused person in a state court while he is legally incompetent violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the question may be raised on a petition for writ of habeas corpus. His view is that it necessarily follows that he was entitled to a plenary hearing in the District Court on his contention that he was incompetent to stand trial. The propositions of law asserted are correct. However, this was the issue presented on the appeal: Whether the District Court erred in denying a hearing on the question of appellant’s competency at the time of his trial.

Pate v. Robinson, supra, does not require a hearing in every case where such a claim is made. Whether a hearing is indicated is to be determined under the hearing requirement rules of Townsend v. Sain, 1963, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed. 770. The state hearing which was afforded appellant prior to his murder trial on the question of his mental competency, and the disposition of that question meets the rule of Townsend v. Sain, supra. No further federal hearing is required.

There is, however, one portion of our opinion in Lee v. Wiman, 5 Cir., 1960, 280 F.2d 257, at p. 266, which should be clarified. It was there indicated that a federal habeas court might treat a state prisoner, seeking collateral relief based on a claim of mental incompetence at trial, differently from a federal prisoner in the same circumstance. The difference was couched in terms of restrictions on the right of a state prisoner to raise such a question in a federal habeas court. There were no restrictions on a federal prisoner. Pate v. Robinson, supra, makes it clear that there can be no difference between the relief available to a federal or state prisoner in such circumstance. Either may have the due process question of his mental competency to stand trial considered on a petition for collateral relief, assuming the necessary factual basis to warrant a hearing.

We have reconsidered the factual posture of appellant’s claim. He was convicted in 1943 for murdering his father in 1942, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Under the authority of Pate v. Robinson, supra, his discharge from prison would be mandatory after affording the state an opportunity to try him again within a reasonable time. That case holds that it would not be sufficient to simply order a hearing in the District Court on whether he was competent to stand trial in view of the long lapse of time since the trial. Seven years had elapsed since the state trial of Robinson. Appellant, on the other hand, was tried twenty three years ago. Whether this relief will be granted depends upon the viability of our prior decision, Lee v. Wiman, supra.

That decision and the decision of the Supreme Court of Alabama in Ex Parte Lee, 1946, 248 Ala. 246, 27 So.2d 147, point out that appellant was given a jury trial under the provisions of Title 15, § 428 of the 1940 Code of Alabama, shortly after the murder, on the issue of his sanity. The issue involved his sanity at the time of the hearing. Seven physicians and seventeen lay witnesses testified upon that hearing. Some of the evidence is detailed in our prior opinion. Lee v. Wiman, supra. Subsequent events are also there detailed and reasons stated as to why a federal hearing was not required. We concluded then that appellant was not entitled to a hearing in the District Court on the question of his mental competence at the time of his trial. We adhere to that conclusion.

Denied.