Keith Cooper Case

I. Identifying Information

a. Byron Keith Cooper, Petitioner, is appealing a conviction of first-degree murder and death sentence in the District Court, Oklahoma County, as ordered by Justice Richard Weldon Freeman, before the U.S. Supreme Court.

II. Legal Issues

a. What is the appropriate standard of evidence for determining competency to stand trial?

i. Is preponderance of the evidence the appropriate standard of evidence?

b. Does Oklahoma's procedural rule allowing the State to try a defendant who is more likely than not incompetent violate the defendant’s right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment?

III. Facts of the Case

a. Cooper was charged with the murder of an 86-year-old man during the course of a burglary.

b. At trial, an

The trial court then imposed the death penalty.

d. Several times before and during the course of the trial, Cooper’s competence to stand trial due to hallucinatory behavior. A judge considered whether petitioner had the ability to understand the charges against him and to assist defense counsel.

i. Specifically, Cooper said he thought his prison clothing was “burning” him, he talked to both himself and an imaginary “spirit” that he believed was providing him with counsel, and he expressed fear that his life was being threated by his own counsel and that they wanted to kill him.

e. In response to questions regarding Cooper’s competency to stand trial, his attorney moved for either a mistrial or additional investigation into his competency but the court denied both motions.

f. After Cooper appealed to the Oklahoma Court of Appeals, they Court affirmed both the conviction and the sentence.

i. The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the argument that Cooper’s right to due process was being violated by Oklahoma’s presumption of his competence, as well as their statutory requirement that clear and convincing evidence is required to establish a defendant’s incompetence to stand trial.

IV. Prior Legal

Significance for forensic practice

a. While Dusky had already established that a defendant has a fundamental right to not be put on trial unless he can satisfy the two-factor requirements to demonstrate competency, this case clarified that states must use a preponderance of the evidence to evaluate competency during a criminal trial and cannot place a clear and convincing burden of proof on the defendant to show that he is incapable to stand trial.

b. Summarily, a State may not proceed with a criminal trial after the defendant has demonstrated that he is more likely than not to be incompetent, and cannot demand high level level burden of proof.

VII. Discussion

a. I agree with this decision. When a state has the liberty to heighten the burden of proof placed on the defendant to prove incompetency, I agree that there is a serious and significant threat that some defendants who are indeed incompetent may be unjustly deemed competent. I also feel like the majority’s holding that state’s interests in this matter do not outweigh a defendant’s Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. Theoretically speaking, it seems more just that some competent defendants be found incompetent than some incompetent defendants be found competent because, in my opinion, there is still an appropriate level of evidence required to show incompetence and it is more morally just to rehabilitate a competent defendant under less punitive measures than it is to punish incompetent defendants unjustly and