Cite as: 505 U. S. 437 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
the burden of proof in competency hearings comports with due process. We disagree. In Mathews, we articulated a three-factor test for evaluating procedural due process claims which requires a court to consider
"[f]irst, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail." Id., at 335.
In our view, the Mathews balancing test does not provide the appropriate framework for assessing the validity of state procedural rules which, like the one at bar, are part of the criminal process. E. g., People v. Fields, 62 Cal. 2d 538, 542, 399 P. 2d 369, 371 (competency hearing "must be regarded as part of the proceedings in the criminal case") (internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 382 U. S. 858 (1965).
In the field of criminal law, we "have defined the category of infractions that violate 'fundamental fairness' very narrowly" based on the recognition that, "[b]eyond the specific guarantees enumerated in the Bill of Rights, the Due Process Clause has limited operation." Dowling v. United States, 493 U. S. 342, 352 (1990); accord, United States v. Lovasco, 431 U. S. 783, 790 (1977). The Bill of Rights speaks in explicit terms to many aspects of criminal procedure, and the expansion of those constitutional guarantees under the open-ended rubric of the Due Process Clause invites undue interference with both considered legislative judgments and the careful balance that the Constitution strikes between liberty and order. As we said in Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, 564 (1967), "it has never been thought that [decisions under the Due Process Clause] establish this Court as a rule-making organ for the promulgation of state rules of criminal
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