Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
Marin County Super. Ct. No. SC156102
Kline, P.J.
INTRODUCTION
Susan Ward appeals from an order of the Marin County Superior Court finding that she was incompetent to stand trial in a criminal proceeding and committing her to the state mental hospital with an order permitting the hospital to administer antipsychotic medication to her without her consent. She contends on appeal that the medication order is not supported by substantial evidence. Respondent has moved to dismiss the appeal as moot because appellant was subsequently rendered competent to stand trial in the criminal proceeding and pleaded guilty to elder abuse (Pen. Code, § 368, subd. (b)(1), a felony), and to making unlawful 911 calls (§ 653x, subd. (a)), a misdemeanor). The trial court placed appellant on probation, following her completion of the STAR court program. We agree with respondent that the matter is moot and so shall dismiss the appeal.
All statutory references are to the Penal Code, unless otherwise indicated.
BACKGROUND
On October 18, 2007, a criminal complaint was filed against appellant charging her with cruelty to an elder or dependent adult (§ 368, subd. (b)(1), a felony); cutting a utility line (§ 591, a felony); dissuading a witness from reporting a crime (§ 136.1, subd. (b)(1), a felony); resisting, delaying or obstructing a peace officer (§ 148, subd. (a)(1), a misdemeanor); battery (§ 242, a misdemeanor); and unlawful 911 calls (§ 653x, subd. (a), a misdemeanor). It was further alleged that the count of the charge of dissuading a witness from reporting a crime was a serious felony within the meaning of sections 1192.7, subdivision (c)(37), and 1170.12, subdivisions (a), (b), and (c).
On October 29, 2007, criminal proceedings were suspended for an evaluation of appellant’s competency to stand trial. Following reports submitted by Doctors Burstein and French, appointed by the court to evaluate appellant’s mental competency, and testimony by court-appointed expert Dr. Martin Blinder, the court found her not competent to stand trial and made additional appointments for evaluations as to involuntary administration of medications and placement. On January 4, 2008, following a hearing at which the reports were received and expert testimony by Dr. Blinder was heard, the court found that appellant lacked the capacity to make decisions regarding antipsychotic medication, that her mental disorder required medical treatment with antipsychotic medication, and, if untreated with antipsychotic medication, it was probable that serious harm to appellant’s physical or mental health would result. The court therefore authorized involuntary administration of medications when and as prescribed by her treating physician. The court placed appellant at Patton State Hospital.
Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal from the order of January 4, 2008. She sought only reversal of the medication order on the grounds that it was not supported by substantial evidence. On May 12, 2008, we granted appellant’s motion to amend the notice of appeal to include the November 26, 2007 order of commitment.
On October 2, 2008, respondent filed a motion to dismiss the appeal on the ground that the appeal was moot because appellant had been rendered competent to stand trial and that she had pleaded guilty on June 8, 2008, pursuant to a plea agreement, to felony elder abuse and to a misdemeanor making unlawful 911calls. Imposition of sentence was suspended and appellant was placed on supervised probation for three years. A condition of probation was that appellant take any and all medication as directed. Appellant has opposed the motion to dismiss this appeal. On October 22, 2008, we ordered the motion to dismiss to be considered with the appeal.
DISCUSSION
In her briefs on appeal, apparently anticipating her return to competency, appellant contended that the matter would not be moot, should she be certified as competent and returned to court. In her opposition to respondent’s motion to dismiss the appeal, appellant contends the appeal was not rendered moot by her return to competency and her entry of guilty pleas in the case.
Although appellant has been rendered competent, entered into a plea agreement and been sentenced, she nevertheless contends that this matter is not moot and that we should address the merits. According to appellant, this type of commitment is “ ‘typically of short duration’ ” and “ ‘likely [to evade] appellate review,’ ” if the appeal is dismissed as moot. She further argues that the “continuing stigma” of an erroneous finding of incompetence to stand trial prevents the matter from being moot, and that she should be allowed to “ ‘clear her name.’ ” She relies primarily upon People v. Solorzano (2005) 126 Cal.App.4th 1063 (Solorzano), which she contends specifically addresses the question of mootness in a mental health commitment order. We are convinced that Solorzano is inapplicable here and that the more relevant authority is People v. Lindsey (1971) 20 Cal.App.3d 742 (Lindsey).
“[A]n action that originally was based on a justiciable controversy cannot be maintained on appeal if all the questions have become moot by subsequent acts or events. A reversal would be without practical effect, and the appeal will therefore be dismissed.” (9 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (5th ed. 2008) Appeal, § 749, p. 814.) In the criminal context, review is permitted where the defendant who has completed his or her sentence has an interest in clearing his or her name or where, as a result of the sentence, the law imposes “disadvantageous collateral consequences” on the defendant. (Lindsey, supra, 20 Cal.App.3d at p. 744; 6 Witkin & Epstein, Cal. Criminal Law (3d ed. 2000) Criminal Appeal, § 164, p. 411.)
In Lindsey, supra, 20 Cal.App.3d 742, the defendant had been found insane within the meaning of a certain penal statute. Criminal proceedings were therefore suspended and he was committed to a state hospital for care and treatment. (Id. at p. 743.) The defendant appealed the finding of insanity, but, during the pendency of the appeal, he was certified to have become sane and was returned to the court, where the criminal charges were set for trial. (Ibid.) The appellate court, in holding that the appeal was moot, observed: “If any social opprobrium is thought to attach by reason of the commitment, that is nothing which is likely to be relieved by an appellate decision. The temporary commitment is nothing from which defendant needs to ‘clear his name.’ ” (Id. at p. 745; see People v. DeLong (2002) 101 Cal.App.4th 482, 489.)
Similarly here, any “social opprobrium” or “continuing stigma” to which appellant might be subject would not be alleviated by our addressing the merits of her appeal. This is particularly true in light of the fact that appellant has been adjudged competent, returned to the court, pled guilty to charges arising from the incidents, and sentenced thereupon. Thus, any stigmatizing consequences flowing from appellant’s having been ordered involuntarily medicated, would exist regardless of whether or not this court overturned the involuntary medication order. Moreover, the merits of any future court order for involuntary medication would not flow from the circumstances of the past conduct that are relevant to the current appeal, but would necessarily relate to the facts and circumstances involved in such hypothetical future conduct.
The case upon which appellant relies, Solorzano, supra, 126 Cal.App.4th 1063, is not on point. In that case, the trial court’s refusal to hear the defendant’s Marsden motion during the pendency of proceedings to determine whether the defendant was competent to stand trial (§ 1367, subd. (a)) provided a basis for reversal of the judgment of conviction following trial on criminal charges. (Solorzano, at pp. 1065-1066.) After the trial court abruptly refused to hear the Marsden motion, it found the defendant competent to stand trial. A week later, at reinstated criminal proceedings, the defendant made another Marsden motion to replace his new attorney. The court heard and denied the motion and, following a trial, a jury found the defendant both sane and guilty of various criminal charges. He appealed, arguing the trial court’s refusal to hear the Marsden motion during the pendency of the initial competency proceedings denied him due process of law. (Id. at pp. 1065-1066, 1071.) The Attorney General argued that any error in failing to hold a Marsden hearing when first raised during competency proceedings was not prejudicial, because the court provided him such a hearing a week later when he raised his new Marsden motionagainst a new attorney representing him at the reinstated criminal proceedings. (Id. at p. 1070.) The appellate court rejected the Attorney General’s prejudice argument, stating: “The court that denied [the defendant’s] later motion, however, did so not at his competency hearing, but at his reinstated criminal proceedings, solely on the rationale that he ‘did already have a hearing on the competency issue’ and was ‘found competent to stand trial.’ On that record, we decline the Attorney General’s invitation to equate one court’s denial of a moot motion after a hearing during reinstated criminal proceedings with another court’s denial of a ripe motion without a hearing during competency proceedings.” (Id. at p. 1070.)
People v. Marsden (1970) 2 Cal.3d 118.
Appellant asserts that the appellate court in Solorzano “declined to treat an appeal from a similar commitment order as moot even though the defendant had been restored to competency by the time the appeal was heard.” No claim was made in Solorzano that the appeal itself was moot. Indeed, it was clear that the defendant was found competent to stand trial and was found guilty after trial. Nothing about the appeal from his conviction was even arguably moot. Rather, the Attorney General argued that the court’s hearing and denial of the second Marsden motion at trial rendered harmless any previous error in refusing to consider the motion when raised during the pendency of competency proceedings. This case has no bearing upon the issue of mootness here.
Nor do the other cases cited by appellant persuade us that the matter is not moot. Uniformly, they involve important issues of significant public interest. (See Conservatorship of Roulet (1979) 23 Cal.3d 219, 221-222, fn. omitted [whether “proof beyond a reasonable doubt and a unanimous jury verdict are the proper standards to apply before a conservator can be appointed under the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act’s (LPS Act) grave disability provisions, with the power to involuntarily commit a conservatee to a state mental institution for up to a year”]; People v. Feagley (1975) 14 Cal.3d 338, 345 [question of significant public interest raised as to whether alleged mentally disordered sex offender was entitled to safeguard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and unanimous verdict]; Conservatorship of Jones (1989) 208 Cal.App.3d 292, 294-295, 298 [appeal of order denying a gravely disabled parolee’s request to end conservatorship in which both parties urged the court to address the issue of continuing public interest presented as to whether the Department of Corrections fit the definition of “ ‘third party assistance’ ” under the LPS Act so as to preclude the finding of grave disability required to establish and maintain a conservatorship under the Act]; North Bay Regional Center v. Sherry S. (1989) 207 Cal.App.3d 449, 454-455 [question of what procedure to follow for subsequent hospitalizations of severely developmentally disabled, but not dangerous, individual raised a significant question, likely to reoccur and because of length of one-year extensions would likely escape review]; Conservatorship of Baber (1984) 153 Cal.App.3d 542, 547-548 [whether a prospective conservatee has an absolute privilege to refuse to testify at his or her own conservatorship trial on Fifth Amendment grounds presented an issue of public interest certain to recur in other conservatorships, yet always evading review and warranted the appellate court’s exercise of its inherent discretion to address the issue].)
Appellant has failed to identify any question of significant public interest raised in her appeal of the involuntary medication issue. Moreover, none of the cases relied upon by appellant for her assertion that there was a “stigma” attached to the finding that she was not competent to stand trial and that she must be given an opportunity to “ ‘clear her name’ ” arose in the context presented here.
Under the circumstances presented, there is no compelling reason for this court to exercise its discretion to consider this moot appeal. Indeed, it is clear that any determination we could make as to whether substantial evidence supported the court’s medication order would be wholly ineffective in providing any relief to appellant. The matter is moot, and should be dismissed. (See Lindsey, supra, 20 Cal.App.3d at p. 745.)
DISPOSITION
The appeal is dismissed.
We concur: Haerle, J. Lambden, J.