P. v. Hall
Defendant and appellant Steven B. Hall appeals the finding that he should be subject to a civil commitment as a mentally disordered offender (MDO). The current proceeding is the 10th time that defendant has been subject to MDO civil commitment proceedings. Defendant argues that, with respect to the current petition, the trial court erred in failing to advise defendant of his right to a jury trial at the MDO hearing. (See Pen. Code, § 2972, subd. (a).) He contends that the error is prejudicial per se, or, at the very least, that the Chapman[1] standard of error (harmless beyond a reasonable doubt) should apply because the error constitutes the violation of a federal constitutional right. We disagree. The right to jury trial is a matter of state law; the appropriate standard of prejudice is the Watson[2] standard, i.e., whether it is reasonably probable that a more favorable result would have been reached in the absence of the error. We conclude that the error was harmless under the Watson standard, and we affirm the trial court’s MDO order.
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