By Jonathan Stempel
WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Two death row inmates were not
entitled to a delay of their federal appeals on the grounds that
they were incompetent to assist their lawyers, the U.S. Supreme
Court said on Tuesday.
In a unanimous ruling against inmates Ernest Valencia
Gonzales and Sean Carter, the court also said federal judges
cannot indefinitely delay appeals of state criminal convictions
in the hope that the defendants might eventually become
competent enough to help out.
Justice Clarence Thomas said defense lawyers are "quite
capable" of reviewing cases without their clients' help and can
identify arguments or state court errors that can be raised on
appeal.
He said a district judge who believes an incompetent
defendant could substantially aid in his defense should examine
the likelihood that the defendant will regain competence.
In contrast, "where there is no reasonable hope of
competence, a stay merely frustrates the state's attempts to
defend its presumptively valid judgment," Thomas wrote.
Gonzales was convicted by an Arizona jury in the stabbings
of two people in front of their seven-year-old son during a
burglary. One of the victims died.
Carter was found guilty by an Ohio jury of the rape and
stabbing death of his adoptive grandmother.
Dale Baich, who works in the federal public defender's
office that represented Gonzales, noted that Supreme Court
decision left room for federal courts to put some appeals on
hold. A prisoner's competency to assist counsel is an issue in
roughly one dozen capital cases pending nationwide, he said.
A lawyer for Carter was not immediately available to
comment.
Thomas said the federal appeals courts that put both cases
on hold erred in relying on two federal statutes to find that
defendants must be competent.
A requirement of competency also does not flow from a
defendant's right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution, he wrote.
The court also said it was "unwarranted" to extrapolate a
definitive rule based on a 1960s case involving an incompetent
death row inmate that it put on hold for nearly three decades.
That case ended when the prisoner died.
The cases are Ryan v. Gonzales, U.S. Supreme Court, No.
10-930; and Tibbals v. Carter, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 11-218.
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