The Supreme Court today affirms the death sentence in People v. Ghobrial, rejecting, among others, the argument that the superior court should have held a hearing to determine the defendant’s competence to stand trial. The death penalty was imposed after a jury convicted the defendant of the first degree murder of a 12-year-old boy and found true the special circumstance that the murder was committed while defendant was engaged in the commission of a lewd and lascivious act on the child. The boy’s body was dismembered.
The defendant contended that evidence at the trial’s penalty phase raised a doubt as to his competence to stand trial and that the superior court erred in not holding a hearing on the issue. The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Leondra Kruger holds that, although a hearing is required “when there is a bona fide doubt as to the defendant’s competence” and although the evidence showed “defendant suffered from serious mental illness,” the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in declining a hearing. In addition to other factors, the opinion concludes that “the trial court reasonably could have ascribed some weight to trial counsel’s failure to raise concerns about defendant’s competence at any point during the proceedings.”
