State v. Tierney
Annotate this CasePetitioner Michael Tierney was charged with promoting a detrimental drug in the third degree. The trial court determined that Petitioner's fitness to proceed to trial was at issue and ordered a one person panel to examine Petitioner. Petitioner refused to cooperate with the examination. The trial court proceeded to trial without the examiner's opinion and found Petitioner guilty of the charge. The intermediate court of appeals (ICA) affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) when a court orders an examination to determine whether a defendant is fit to proceed to trial pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. 704-404(1) and the defendant refuses to cooperate with the examiner, the examiner must produce a report of the examination that expressly states whether such unwillingness of defendant was the result of physical or mental disease, if possible; (2) if it is not possible for the examiner to make that determination, the examiner must expressly state as much; and (3) because the examiner in this case did not state in his report whether Petitioner was fit to proceed or state that it was impossible to make that determination, the district court abused its opinion in proceeding to trial without the examiner's opinion.
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