Reported / Citable
Background
The People charged Alexander Esparza with kidnapping his fiancée, L.S., for ransom, reward, or extortion. At the time of the alleged offense, L.S. was on a temporary LPS conservatorship and placed in a residential facility; she allegedly went missing from the facility and was found months later attempting to return from Mexico with Esparza. Days after Esparza’s arraignment, a probate court issued a final order appointing the San Bernardino County Public Guardian as L.S.’s LPS conservator and finding her gravely disabled and unable to make rational medical decisions; the conservatorship investigator’s report had identified schizophrenia.
Esparza subpoenaed L.S. to testify in his defense at the preliminary hearing. The Public Guardian moved to quash on the ground that L.S.’s grave-disability finding established her incompetence to testify under Evidence Code section 701. The trial court agreed and granted the motion. Esparza filed a writ petition.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal granted the writ. As a matter of statutory construction, the LPS Act’s grave-disability finding and Evidence Code section 701’s witness-competency standard are distinct. Grave disability under Welfare and Institutions Code section 5008 asks whether the person can provide for basic personal needs. Witness incompetence under Evidence Code section 701 asks whether the person is incapable of expressing himself or herself in a way that can be understood, or is incapable of understanding the duty to tell the truth.
A person can be gravely disabled and yet competent to testify; many people under LPS conservatorships can testify lucidly about events they witnessed. The trial court’s reliance on the probate court’s order to short-circuit the section 701 inquiry was legal error. The trial court must conduct an actual section 701 competency evaluation — typically by examining the proposed witness or considering targeted evidence about her capacity to understand and communicate.
The court directed the trial court to vacate the order granting the motion to quash and to reconsider competency under the proper standard.
Key Takeaways
- An LPS Act grave-disability finding is not equivalent to a finding of incompetence to testify under Evidence Code section 701.
- Section 701 requires its own evaluation: (1) capacity to express oneself in a way that can be understood, and (2) capacity to understand the duty to tell the truth.
- Trial courts must conduct an actual competency inquiry — by examining the witness or considering targeted evidence — rather than relying on collateral findings from probate proceedings.
- Defense counsel subpoenaing LPS conservatees should be prepared to demonstrate the witness’s specific capacity to testify; conservators should not assume their wards are categorically incompetent.
- The decision protects the fundamental due-process right to subpoena and present favorable witnesses, even when those witnesses have mental-health challenges.
Why It Matters
This is an important decision at the intersection of mental-health law and criminal procedure. People under LPS conservatorships frequently appear in criminal cases — sometimes as defendants, sometimes as victims, and sometimes (as here) as witnesses called by the defense. The Fourth District has now made clear that an LPS conservatorship does not strip a person of testimonial capacity automatically. Trial courts must do the section 701 work in each case.
For criminal defense counsel, the case is a useful tool to ensure that key witnesses are not categorically excluded based on collateral mental-health findings. For prosecutors and public guardians, the case is a reminder that motions to quash subpoenas to LPS conservatees must engage with the section 701 standards, not rely on grave-disability shorthand. For trial courts, the practical lesson is to conduct competency hearings — perhaps with the witness’s own counsel or counselor present — when an LPS conservatee is subpoenaed.