In Rodriguez v. Superior Court, the Supreme Court today holds a commitment of a criminal defendant who is found incompetent to stand trial is not ended within the statutory two-year maximum by a state hospital’s medical director filing a certificate that the defendant has been restored to competency. Instead, it is a judge’s subsequent determination of competency restoration that completes the commitment. Commitments beyond the two-year limit require the defendant’s release (subject to possible re-arrest) or the beginning of civil conservatorship proceedings, or possibly something else, the court says.
The court’s unanimous opinion by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero concludes that not deeming a commitment to have ended before a court has ruled on a certificate of competence “is consistent with the Legislature’s intent to limit the period of detention due to incompetency and provide certainty regarding the length of that detention period.” Otherwise, the court says, “a defendant could be held indefinitely while awaiting a competency hearing, subject only to the limits imposed by the due process clause.”
However, the court leaves for the Court of Appeal on remand whether the commitment of the defendant in the case before it was too long or what the remedy should be if the commitment did exceed the statutory limit. Are there other “appropriate remedies” besides release (and possible re-arrest) or conservatorship? Can the two-year period be tolled by continuances of competency restoration hearings for good cause? Those issues are unresolved.
The court reverses the Sixth District Court of Appeal’s published opinion.