Eric Malmstrom v. United States
Whether the district court abused its discretion when it failed to sua sponte order a competency evaluation. The facts of Petitioner's crime, standing alone, gave rise to a reasonable cause to believe that Petitioner may presently be suffering from mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent. In the present case, Petitioner made over 300 hundred phone calls to the Swedish Embassy, and to a consular employee, to whom he had no connection, repeating random religious references, talking about an imaginary King Larrson and King Larrson's granddaughter, and threatening the employee and the citizens of Sweden with sexualized violence using a sword. Such acts plainly put the district court on notice that Petitioner might be suffering from a mental disease rendering him mentally incompetent, notwithstanding the fact that defense counsel did not raise the competency issue
Whether the district court abused its discretion when it failed to sua sponte order a competency evaluation