Disgraced Attorney VERNON PATTERSON Confesses To Using Diversion Evaluation To Determine Client's Competence

THE PAPER TRAIL OF A SYSTEMIC BETRAYAL: HOW COURT-APPOINTED DEFENSE COUNSEL CONFESSED TO THE UNLAWFUL CONVERSION OF SEALED MENTAL HEALTH DIVERSION DATA INTO A COMPETENCY WEAPON

LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CA — In what represents one of the most alarming and documented breakdowns of legal ethics and statutory procedure in recent Los Angeles Superior Court history, written email admissions have surfaced proving that confidential defense work product, generated strictly for pretrial mental health diversion, was unlawfully repurposed to declare doubt and freeze a criminal defendant’s constitutional rights.

The smoking-gun evidence—contained in an explosive April 24, 2024 email thread between court-appointed defense attorney Vernon Patterson and his client, Michael Bernard Taylor, Jr.—exposes a routine practice that should horrify every criminal defense scholar, civil rights advocate, and first-year law student in the nation.

In a single email, attorney Vernon Patterson wrote the following admission, confirming that a defense-side mental health diversion evaluation commissioned under Penal Code § 1001.36 was improperly used as the legal predicate to suspend criminal proceedings under Penal Code § 1368:

"I don't think what Ms. Bell did was wrong. My understanding is that she was pursuing mental health diversion. In or the get mental health diversion it requires an evaluation from a psychologist or psychiatrist. This was done and in your case it came back that you were incompetent to stand trial. Once she received this information she cannot continue on with your case as "normal." A doubt was declared and your case was sent to the Hollywood court. The judge in department 213 now has to decide if you are competent or incompetent. In order for the court to make this determination it needs a report from a doctor. Hence, I have said that we or you have to address that issue. I can't on my own conclude that you are competent. So it's a "Catch 22" situation. My advice is to meet with the prosecution expert."

THE ANATOMY OF AN ETHICAL AND STATUTORY DISASTER

To understand why Patterson’s written confession is so egregiously improper, one must look at the strict structural firewalls established by California law—firewalls that any aspiring attorney is taught to treat as sacrosanct.

Under California law, Penal Code § 1001.36 (Mental Health Diversion) and Penal Code § 1368 (Competency Proceedings) occupy entirely different statutory universes, designed for opposing legal objectives. Mental Health Diversion is a voluntary, defense-driven remedy. Evaluations conducted for diversion under Evidence Code §§ 730 and 952 are confidential defense work product. They are ordered under seal specifically so that a defendant can seek clinical treatment without waiving Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination or forfeiting control over their criminal defense.

Under California Evidence Code §§ 952 and 953, the attorney-client privilege belongs exclusively to the client, not to the court, and certainly not to appointed defense counsel. An attorney has no legal authority to unilaterally unseal, disclose, or transmit confidential clinical evaluations to third parties, judicial officers, or prosecutors without an explicit, executed consent waiver from the client.

Yet, as Patterson openly admits in writing, Deputy Public Defender Danielle Bell took a confidential, defense-side evaluation—meant solely to explore diversion treatment—and weaponized it to declare doubt regarding Taylor's competency. By doing so, defense counsel effectively converted a voluntary, confidential shield into a prosecution sword, triggering an involuntary suspension of criminal proceedings and placing Taylor under the threat of involuntary state mental commitment.

THE RATIFICATION OF CONDUCT AND THE ABDICATION OF ADVOCACY

What elevates Patterson’s conduct from mere negligence to deliberate, actionable misconduct is his total ratification of prior counsel’s statutory breach. When Taylor confronted Patterson regarding the unconsented disclosure and the absence of a lawful court order, asking, "Ms. Daroca-Bell violated my constitutional rights with that assessment and you are predetermining the neglect of this issue by disregarding my intentions to object. What do you call that Mr. Patterson?", Patterson did not file a motion to seal the record. He did not object to the breach of Evidence Code § 952. He did not challenge the court's jurisdiction.

Instead, Patterson doubled down, writing, "I don't think what Ms. Bell did was wrong," and dismissing the entire constitutional violation as an unavoidable "Catch 22 situation".

For a law student analyzing this exchange, Patterson’s response represents a textbook breach of an attorney’s absolute duties under California Business and Professions Code § 6068(e)(1)—which commands attorneys to maintain inviolate the confidences and secrets of their clients at every peril to themselves—and California Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.6. Rather than standing as an aggressive advocate protecting his client's constitutional rights, Patterson acted as an administrative facilitator for the state, pressuring his own client to submit to a prosecution doctor and capitulate to a flawed procedural pipeline.

A DELIBERATE IGNORED NOTICE AND REAL-TIME AUDIT

The email thread reveals that Taylor was not merely passively enduring this procedural derailment; he was actively auditing the record and placing regulatory oversight bodies on notice in real time.

When Patterson repeatedly attempted to reduce Taylor's legal objections to a single compliance demand—asking "Did you meet with the doctor?" and "Does that mean you haven't met with the doctor?"—Taylor systematically exposed the bad legal advice being thrust upon him.

Taylor responded forcefully: "Stop undermining my intelligence please. I never once said or implied that YOU have discretion to address my competency. YOU, Mr. Patterson, are obligated to remedy preexisting violations of my constitutional rights. Period. Why does competency to stand "trial" matter if I was already going to pursue mental health diversion anyhow? Your reasoning is fundamentally skewed, sir and your deliberate attempts to frustrate me and provoke my anger thru the denial of my constitutional rights is causing me serious harm."

Furthermore, Taylor escalated the email thread directly to institutional authorities, copying the State Bar of California (ptl@calbar.ca.gov, whistleblowercomplaint@calbar.ca.gov), Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, and senior Public Defender leadership including Danielle Bell, Kristoffer McFarren, Casey Lilienfeld, and Linda Eby.

Taylor explicitly laid out the statutory distinction in his written demand to Patterson, citing the precise legal boundaries: "Penal Code 738 in California outlines procedures for determining a defendant's competency to stand trial... These assessments are not typically used to determine a defendant's eligibility for mental health diversion... Mental health diversion, on the other hand, is a separate legal process... In summary, a competency assessment conducted under PC 738 is not typically used to determine a defendant's eligibility for mental health diversion. Separate evaluations and criteria are typically utilized for each process."

Taylor concluded the thread by identifying the structural coercion at play: "You are deliberately giving me bad legal advice, pressuring me to prejudice not just my case but my entire livelihood. You wouldn't do this to yourself so why are you doing it to me? Better yet, why are you asking me to do it to myself? Why would the public defenders initiate a competency assessment while I've been asserting my constitutional rights? Oh, that's right. You guys have ulterior motives to neglect these rights in order to fulfill favors for each other."

THE SHOCKING LEGAL IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC FAITH IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM

To any legal mind reviewing this paper trail, the implications are profound and disturbing. When court-appointed attorneys conflate mental health diversion with competency proceedings, they create an institutional trap where defendants who seek voluntary clinical help are instantly stripped of their legal capacity and diverted into a system of involuntary restraint.

When defense counsel subsequently labels this self-created statutory contamination a "Catch-22" and advises their client to submit to state prosecution experts, the adversarial process completely collapses. Defense counsel ceases to function as an independent advocate under the Sixth Amendment and becomes an instrument of administrative confinement.

Patterson's written admissions do not merely document an isolated tactical error—they provide definitive evidence of a systemic practice where defense-side work product is routinely unsealed without consent, fundamental privilege is ignored, and constitutional rights are quietly traded away under the cover of court-ordered "evaluations."

With formal regulatory complaints pending and an unassailable evidentiary trail established directly from the defense attorney's own keyboard, this case stands as a stark warning of what happens when procedural convenience replaces constitutional compliance in the criminal justice system.