The trial court erred in determining that a retrospective evaluation of defendant’s competency to stand trial in 1994 was feasible. The prosecution did not meet its burden of showing that it remained possible to provide the defendant a competency trial comparable to the one the defendant should have been given but was denied. Under any standard of review, a retrospective evaluation was not feasible given the passage of 19 years, the unavailability of a key expert and other witnesses, as well as the undeveloped record which resulted from the error of permitting defendant to represent himself in the 1994 proceeding.

The full opinion is on the court’s website here: https://www4.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S226760.PDF