Competency to Stand Trial

Abstract

Defendants can be found incompetent to stand trial, under provisions in criminal law, if they are unable to understand their legal circumstances and participate adequately in their defense. If they are found incompetent, further judicial proceedings are suspended until their competency has been restored. The purposes behind this procedure are to ensure that defendants receive a fair trial and to preserve the dignity of the adversarial process (Melton, Petrila, Poythress, & Slogobin, 2007). The competency standard that is currently recognized by the courts was established in Dusky v. United States (362 U.S. 402, 1960), which holds that defendants must be able to consult with an attorney and have a rational and factual understanding of the proceedings.

Competency to stand trial evaluations: A state‐wide review of court‐ordered reports

“…For example, Zapf et al (2004) reviewed competency proceedings in Alabama and discovered that the judicial determination agreed with the evaluator opinion in 99.7% of cases. Furthermore, over half of judges in a North Carolina survey indicated that they did not hold hearings to determine defendants' competency and instead relied on the opinion contained in CST evaluation reports (Roesch & Golding, 1980). Judicial decisions less consistently follow evaluator opinions in other forms of forensic evaluation, such as legal sanity (e.g., Gowensmith, Murrie, & Boccaccini, 2013).…”

Adjudicative Competence Evaluations of Juvenile and Adult Defendants: Judges' Views Regarding Essential Components of Competence Reports

“…In particular, while legal standards of competence focus on whether a defendant has impaired legal capacities as a result of mental health issues (Dusky v. United States, 1960;Drope v. Missouri, 1975;Grisso, 2003), historically, mental health clinicians often ignored or confused these legal standards, and sometimes simply equated mental illness with incompetence (Hess & Thomas, 1963;McGarry, 1965;Roesch & Golding, 1980). Over the past several decades, there have been significant efforts to improve the quality of competence evaluations.…”

Understanding and Evaluating Contrasting Unfitness to Stand Trial Practices: A Comparison between Canada and the Netherlands

“…Thus, it must be shown that the mental disorder affects certain legal abilities. This is known as a functional assessment of the construct of fitness (Roesch & Golding, 1980). However, the majority of unfit accused do evidence symptoms of psychosis (approximately 60% of male unfit accused in the Latimer & Lawrence, 2006 study were diagnosed with either schizophrenia or delusional disorders), since they are more impaired than other defendants in terms of their relevant abilities (Viljoen, Roesch, & Zapf, 2002).…”

“…For example, it has been asserted that the procedures are sometimes employed either as a surreptitious means of obtaining information about the accused's mental condition where there is the possibility that the defense of insanity may be raised, or to get information that might be useful in plea bargaining or sentencing (Roesch & Golding, 1980), inter alia scouring the privilege against self-incrimination. Since in Canada the Crown cannot raise the insanity defense, it has been alleged that raising the fitness issue is more advantageous for the Crown, since it provides a mechanism for the confinement of accused for potentially lengthy periods, conflicting with civil rights and liberties (Verdun-Jones, 1981).…”