Commonwealth v. Brown4/29/2005
ressed an appeal from the denial of relief under the PCHA. The appellant raised the issue of whether trial counsel was ineffective in failing to request a hearing on appellant's competency to stand trial. This issue was abandoned by counsel at the PCHA hearing. We stated:
We have long held that "the mental competence of an accused must be regarded as an absolute and basic condition of a fair trial." Commonwealth v. Bruno, 435 Pa. 200, 205 n.1, 255 A.2d 519, 522 n.1 (1969). Accordingly, we have been loath to find waiver of such a claim. Commonwealth v. Marshall, 456 Pa. 313, 318 A.2d 724 (1974). Indeed, we have recently held that "when the issue presented is whether a person was competent to stand trial, the waiver rule is not applicable." Commonwealth v. Tyson, 485 Pa. 344, 402 A.2d 995, 997 (1979).
It is, of course, true that Tyson, id., and Marshall, supra, were direct appeals, and while Bruno, supra, was a collateral attack, it was not a PCHA petition. Nevertheless, our waiver doctrine, although judge-made and not statutory, is one we stringently apply. We have expressly discarded the "fundamental error" rule. Commonwealth v. Clair, 458 Pa. 418, 326 A.2d 272 (1974). Thus, while not recognizing fundamental error, we nevertheless will not permit the waiver of a claim of incompetency, so basic is it to our concepts of justice that a trial of an incompetent is no trial at all. Although we recognize the PCHA includes a waiver provision of its own, 19 P.S. § 1180-3(d), having held the competency of an accused to be an absolute and basic condition of a fair trial, we further hold the no-waiver rule in Tyson to be applicable here as well.
414 A.2d at 1000-1001. As no competency hearing had been conducted, the Court remanded for an evidentiary hearing.
Our Court reaffirmed the Nelson rule in Commonwealth v. Giknis, 420 A.2d 419 (Pa. 1980). On appeal to our Court from the denial of PCHA relief, the appellant in Giknis raised the issue of whether the trial court had an independent basis upon which to determine his competence to enter a plea of guilt because the report issued by the Sanity Commission was inadequate. The appellant also contended that his due process rights had been violated when the trial court proceeded with his case in view of his questionable competency to stand trial. We initially noted that under normal circumstances, the two claims would be waived because the PCHA provided that an issue is waived if it "could have been raised before the trial, at trial, on appeal. . . ." Id. at 420, citing Act of January 25, 1966, P.L. 1580, § 4, 19 P.S. § 1180-4 (Supp. 1979-80). We recognized that appellant could have raised those issues prior to trial, at trial and on direct appeal, but did not do so. We declined to find the issues waived, however, based on our pronouncement in Nelson. Our Court proceeded to examine the substance of the competency claims based on the evidence of record and concluded that the appellant was competent at the time of trial. Id. at 421.
Having established that this Court has precluded the waiver of competency claims under the PCHA in Fernandez, Nelson, and Giknis, we must determine whether we reach the same result under the provisions of the PCRA. The relevant provisions defining waiver in both statutes, however, are nearly identical in that they both provide that an issue is waived if it could have been raised on direct appeal. Accordingly, we hold that the failure to raise on direct appeal a claim that the appellant was incompetent at the time of trial does not constitute a waiver of that claim for purposes of the PCRA.
We clarify that our decision does not conflict with the seminal case of Commonwealth v. Albrech
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