Competency to stand trial in United States Court Cases

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During a criminal proceeding there are many aspects taken into consideration, in order to properly declare someone ‘competent’ to stand trial. Many would mistakenly interpret competency to stand trial as a psychological term, although it is in fact a legal definition. Legal competency consists of many components, which vary from: competency to confess, competency to waive Miranda rights, competency to make decisions over the medication imposed upon them and lastly, competency to stand trial. Competency to stand trial is very important in legal proceedings because it establishes the defendant’s ability to participate in complex procedures that could lead to their incarceration; it is a legal standard that imposed by the United States justice system with the affinity to determine if the defendant has the mental capacity to understand all aspects of the criminal proceedings, from the time the defendant is arrested to the time the suspect is sentenced. In addition, this legal standard is imposed to allow the defendants to have a fair trial and thus be able to rationally and reasonably grasp all the information provided in court, as well as be able to dialogue with an attorney and provide all the crucial evidence needed to defend his or her case. Determining whether a defendant has a full awareness and the mental capacity to provide evidence and participate in their defense, it’s a huge responsibility. The court, along with the help of mental health professions use competency to stand trial evaluations in order to identify if the defendant is competent or incompetent to stand trial. (Costanzo & Krauss 2012) The Supreme Court has made it sufficiently clear that in order for an individual to be incompetent to stand trial, the defendant n... ... middle of paper ... ... stand trial. (Felthous 2014) Comparatively, it is evident that the Dusky Standard was used as guidance for many important Supreme Court cases, such as a more recent case in 2008, Indiana v. Edwards. In this case, Ahmad Edwards also suffered from schizophrenia; just like Milton Dusky in Dusky v. United States at the time he committed a felony. Edwards was in his local Indiana department store when he was approached by a security guard who witnessed him stealing a pair of shoes; when Edwards felt threatened he took out a gun and fired at the security guard, the gun shot passed through the security guards leg and hit another innocent individual. After committing the offense, he wanted to flee the scene. He was held in custody for a numerous felonies, and spent 5 years being submitted to a large amount of CST evaluations, to determine his competency to stand trial.

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