Cite as: 509 U. S. 389 (1993)
Blackmun, J., dissenting
competent to stand trial establishes only that he is capable of aiding his attorney in making the critical decisions required at trial or in plea negotiations. The reliability or even relevance of such a finding vanishes when its basic premise—that counsel will be present—ceases to exist. The question is no longer whether the defendant can proceed with an attorney, but whether he can proceed alone and un-counseled. I do not believe we place an excessive burden upon a trial court by requiring it to conduct a specific inquiry into that question at the juncture when a defendant whose competency already has been questioned seeks to waive counsel and represent himself.
The majority concludes that there is no need for such a hearing because a defendant who is found competent to stand trial with the assistance of counsel is, ipso facto, competent to discharge counsel and represent himself. But the majority cannot isolate the term "competent" and apply it in a vacuum, divorced from its specific context. A person who is "competent" to play basketball is not thereby "competent" to play the violin. The majority's monolithic approach to competency is true to neither life nor the law. Competency for one purpose does not necessarily translate to competency for another purpose. See Bonnie, The Competence of Criminal Defendants: A Theoretical Reformulation, 10 Behav. Sci. & L. 291, 299 (1992); R. Roesch & S. Golding, Competency to Stand Trial 10-13 (1980). Consistent with this commonsense notion, our cases always have recognized that "a defendant's mental condition may be relevant to more than one legal issue, each governed by distinct rules reflecting quite different policies." Drope, 420 U. S., at 176. See Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U. S. 715, 739 (1972). To this end, this Court has required competency evaluations to be specifically tailored to the context and purpose of a proceeding. See Rees v. Peyton, 384 U. S. 312, 314 (1966) (directing court "to determine [petitioner's] mental competence in the present posture of things").
413
Page: Index Previous 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007