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Court Order Finding Defendant Incompetent and Committing Him for Treatment is Final, Appealable
2005-1047. State v. Upshaw, 2006-Ohio-4253.
Clark App. No. 05-CA-35. Judgment reversed and cause remanded to the court of appeals.
Moyer, C.J., Pfeifer, Lundberg Stratton, O'Connor, and Lanzinger, JJ., concur.
Resnick and O'Donnell, JJ., concur in judgment only.
Opinion: http://www.supremecourtofohio.gov/rod/newpdf/0/2006/2006-Ohio-4253.pdf
(Aug. 30, 2006) In a 7-0 decision announced today, the Supreme Court of Ohio held that a court order finding a criminal defendant mentally incompetent to stand trial and committing him to an institution for the restoration of competency is a “final, appealable order” subject to immediate review by a court of appeals.
In 2004, Raymond Upshaw was indicted on assault and abduction charges in the Clark County Court of Common Pleas. Upshaw's attorney filed a motion for a competency evaluation, and Upshaw was evaluated by a clinical psychologist. At a subsequent hearing, the judge accepted the report of the clinical psychologist, found Upshaw incompetent to stand trial, and ordered him committed to a locked-door unit at a psychiatric hospital for competency restoration. Upshaw appealed the court's finding of incompetence and its order committing him to mental health treatment to the 2nd District Court of Appeals.
The 2nd District dismissed Upshaw's appeal, finding that it did not have jurisdiction to review the trial court's order. The appellate panel based its ruling on a 1976 decision, State v. Hunt, in which the Supreme Court of Ohio held that under the version of R.C. 2505.02 in effect at that time, pretrial orders finding a criminal defendant incompetent to stand trial were not final appealable orders. The 2nd District certified that its ruling in this case conflicted with a 2003 decision by the 7th District Court of Appeals, Youngstown v. Ortiz. In Ortiz, the 7th District held that changes to R.C. 2505.02 adopted after the Hunt decision had widened the definition of “final orders” to include pretrial orders finding a defendant to be incompetent and ordering his commitment.
In today's decision, written by Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger, the Supreme Court agreed with the 7th District's holding in Ortiz that amendments to R.C. 2505.02 adopted by the General Assembly in 1998 expanded the legal definition of a “final order” to include the type of order issued by the trial court in this case.
Justice Lanzinger wrote that the common pleas court orders finding Upshaw incompetent and committing him to treatment meet current statutory criteria for immediate appellate review because they (1) granted or denied a provisional remedy; (2) determined the trial court's action with regard to that remedy and prevented judgment in Upshaw's favor on the issue of his commitment; and (3) afforded Upshaw no meaningful or effective remedy to the court's order of commitment if he waited to appeal until after he was subsequently found competent and tried for the offenses with which he was charged.
“(U)nless this order is deemed immediately appealable, Upshaw will be unable to obtain meaningful relief,” wrote Justice Lanzinger. “He has maintained that he is competent to withstand prosecution and that he wants to go to trial. If he is correct that his confinement was mistaken, without immediate judicial review, that mistake is uncorrectable. … As the ( U.S. ) Second Circuit has stated in reasoning that these orders should be reviewed immediately, ‘Whether or not (a defendant's) conviction were set aside, nothing could recover for the defendant the time lost during his confinement; probably no one could be held liable to him for damages for the loss of his liberty.'”
Accordingly, Justice Lanzinger wrote, “We hold that an order finding a criminal defendant incompetent to stand trial and committing the defendant to an institution for the restoration of mental competency is a final, appealable order under R.C. 2505.02(B)(4).”
Justice Lanzinger's opinion was joined by Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer and Justices Paul E. Pfeifer, Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, and Maureen O'Connor. Justices Alice Robie Resnick and Terrence O'Donnell concurred in judgment only.
Contacts
Daniel Driscoll, 937.328.2574, for
the State of Ohio.
Adelina E. Hamilton, 937.223.7848, for Raymond Upshaw.
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