462
Blackmun, J., dissenting
cordingly, the Court concludes: "[I]t is enough that the State affords the criminal defendant on whose behalf a plea of incompetence is asserted a reasonable opportunity to demonstrate that he is not competent to stand trial." Ante, at 451. While I am unable to agree with the Court's conclusion, it is clear that the Court ends up engaging in a balancing inquiry not meaningfully distinguishable from that of the Mathews v. Eldridge test it earlier appears to forswear.2 I am perplexed that the Court, while recognizing "the
careful balance that the Constitution strikes between liberty and order," ante, at 443 (emphasis added), intimates that the apparent "expertise" of the States in criminal procedure
2 Recently, several Members of this Court have expressly declined to limit Mathews v. Eldridge balancing to the civil administrative context and determined that Mathews provides the appropriate framework for assessing the validity of criminal rules of procedure. See Burns v. United States, 501 U. S. 129, 148-156 (1991) (Souter, J., joined in relevant part by White and O'Connor, JJ., dissenting) (applying Mathews to federal criminal sentencing procedures, stating that Mathews does not apply only to civil "administrative" determinations but "[t]he Mathews analysis has thus been used as a general approach for determining the procedures required by due process whenever erroneous governmental action would infringe an individual's protected interest"). The Court also acknowledges that it has previously relied on Mathews v. Eldridge in at least two cases concerning criminal procedure. Ante, at 444 (citing Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U. S. 68 (1985) (due process requires appointment of psychiatrist where defendant's sanity at the time of the offense is to be significant factor at trial), and United States v. Raddatz, 447 U. S. 667 (1980) (due process does not require federal district judges to make de novo determination with live testimony of issues presented in motion to suppress)).
The Court claims that "it is not at all clear" that Mathews was "essential to the results reached in" Ake and Raddatz. Ante, at 444. I am not sure what the Court means, because both cases unquestionably set forth the full Mathews test and evaluated the interests. See Ake, 470 U. S., at 77-83; Raddatz, 447 U. S., at 677-679. What the Court should find clear, if anything, from these two cases is that the specific rights asserted there were historically novel and could hardly be said to have constituted "principle[s] of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental."
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