James Boyd MacKey v. Walter E. Craven, Warden, Folsom State Prison, Represa, California

On April 20,1973, following an evidentiary hearing, the district court found there was a reasonable doubt of Mackey’s competency at the time he entered a plea of guilty to the charge of voluntary manslaughter and that a hearing to determine whether the defendant was competent to plead guilty should have been held in the state court before the guilty plea was accepted. Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375 , 86 S.Ct. 836 , 15 L.Ed.2d 815 (1966); Moore v. United States, 464 F.2d 663 (9th Cir. 1972). The district court ordered that the state provide a hearing to determine whether the defendant was competent to plead guilty at the time of his plea. A hearing was held in the Marin County Superior Court, and the issue was resolved against Mackey. He now contends in this habeas suit that the wrong standard of competency was applied at that hearing (see Sieling v. Eyman, 478 F.2d 211 (9th Cir. 1973)). The district court on April 1, 1975, ordered that the case be remanded to the Marin County Superior Court to be reconsidered in light of Sieiing.

Whether the state must hold a hearing concerning a defendant’s competency to plead guilty is an entirely different issue from the issue of the…