Crimes of Violence and Incompetency Diversion

Abstract

The issues surrounding the area of competency to stand trial have become more visible in the United States during the past decade than at any time since the advent of special security hospitals for the criminally insane in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This visibility has resulted from a number of forces such as the activities of Legal Aid Societies and the American Civil Liberties Union which have resulted in court decisions giving criminally committed patients the right to treatment,' granting them equal protection with civil commitment procedural safeguards,.2 and requiring the release or civil committment of defendants who will not regain competency within a reasonable period of time.3 The plethora of issues surrounding incompetency statutes, procedures, and uses are important, among other reasons, because they may be raised at any point in criminal justice processing from arrest through sentencing. The question of competency may be raised by almost anyone involved in the case, from the arresting officer, to the defendant's family, the defense counsel, the arraigning judge, or the trial judge.4 There are many suggestions in the research literature that competency proceedings serve a multitude of purposes other than a genuine concern for the defendant's mental state and