Cite as: 505 U. S. 437 (1992)
O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment
nia Supreme Court's conclusion that, in essence, the challenged presumption is a restatement of the burden of proof, and it follows from what we have said that the presumption does not violate the Due Process Clause.
Nothing in today's decision is inconsistent with our longstanding recognition that the criminal trial of an incompetent defendant violates due process. Drope v. Missouri, 420 U. S., at 172-173; Pate v. Robinson, 383 U. S., at 386; see also Riggins v. Nevada, 504 U. S. 127, 139 (1992) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment). Rather, our rejection of petitioner's challenge to § 1369(f) is based on a determination that the California procedure is "constitutionally adequate" to guard against such results, Drope v. Missouri, supra, at 172, and reflects our considered view that "[t]raditionally, due process has required that only the most basic procedural safeguards be observed; more subtle balancing of society's interests against those of the accused ha[s] been left to the legislative branch," Patterson v. New York, supra, at 210.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of California is
Affirmed.
Justice O'Connor, with whom Justice Souter joins, concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the judgment of the Court, but I reject its intimation that the balancing of equities is inappropriate in evaluating whether state criminal procedures amount to due process. Ante, at 443-446. We obviously applied the balancing test of Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319 (1976), in Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U. S. 68 (1985), a case concerning criminal procedure, and I do not see that Ake can be distinguished here without disavowing the analysis on which it rests. The balancing of equities that Mathews v. Eldridge outlines remains a useful guide in due process cases.
In Mathews, however, we did not have to address the question of how much weight to give historical practice; in the context of modern administrative procedures, there was no
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