Cite as: 517 U. S. 348 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
is incompetent but the evidence is insufficiently strong to satisfy a clear and convincing standard. While important state interests are unquestionably at stake, in these latter cases the defendant's fundamental right to be tried only while competent outweighs the State's interest in the efficient operation of its criminal justice system.
V
Oklahoma makes two additional arguments in support of its procedural rule that warrant discussion. First, Oklahoma correctly reminds us that it is normally within the power of the State to establish the procedures through which its laws are given effect, including those related to the burden of producing evidence and the burden of persuasion. See Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S., at 201-202. In Patterson we upheld New York's requirement that in a prosecution for second-degree murder the defendant must bear the burden of proving the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance in order to reduce the crime to manslaughter. Id., at 207-208. After observing that the rule was consistent with common-law practice, id., at 202, we held that "[t]he Due Process Clause . . . does not put New York to the choice of abandoning [statutory] defenses or undertaking to disprove their existence in order to convict of a crime which otherwise is within its constitutional powers to sanction by substantial punishment," id., at 207-208.
Although we found no violation in Patterson, we noted that the State's power to regulate procedural burdens was subject to proscription under the Due Process Clause if it "offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental," id., at 201-202 (internal quotation marks omitted). This case involves such a rule. Unlike Patterson, which concerned procedures for proving a statutory defense, we consider here whether a State's procedures for guaranteeing a fundamental constitutional right are sufficiently protective
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