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Mental Health Awareness Month What is the Big Deal About Competency to Stand Trial
As part of Mental Health Awareness month, Dr. Doug Morris, a forensic psychiatrist at Logansport State Hospital, shared the following insight to give FSSA employees some background and history on the legal term, “competency to stand trial.”
What is the big deal about competency to stand trial?
Individuals charged with crimes have rights, but a person impaired by mental illness or an intellectual disability may not be able to use those rights. To be competent to stand trial, a person must have an understanding their charges and their legal situation. A person also must be able to work with their attorney. If a person cannot do these things, it is hard for them to have a fair trial.
Those who are not competent to stand trial typically undergo competency restoration so that they can work with their attorneys and continue their proceedings. Competency restoration services are increasingly important throughout the country. A recent survey of 50 states and the District of Columbia indicated a national 76% increase in the number of forensic patients in state hospitals from 1999 to 2014. For the many states experiencing increases, this rise was primarily due to the increase in patients deemed incompetent to stand trial and referred for competence restoration.
When forensic professionals across the country think of competency restoration, Indiana often comes to mind. That is because of a famous 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case, Jackson v. Indiana. Theon Jackson was an intellectually disabled, deaf, mute man charged with stealing $9 worth of property. Although there was little chance that he would ever be competent to stand trial, he was committed to the Indiana Division of Mental Health until he was “sane.” Mr. Jackson’s attorneys appealed, arguing that this amounted to a life sentence without his ever having been convicted of a crime. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed that this was not right and said that an incompetent defendant “cannot be held more than a reasonable period of time necessary to determine if there is a substantial probability that he will attain competency in the foreseeable future.”
This case set a national standard that individuals cannot be hospitalized indefinitely just because they are not competent to stand trial, and states throughout the nation changed their laws to comply with this decision. Since this decision, now nearly 50 years ago, states continue to try to better understand how to restore individuals to competence.
Because this case was from Indiana, it is fitting that research at Logansport State Hospital has helped this understanding. Logansport State Hospital is known throughout the Midwest, and research at LSH is known nationally. By performing excellent patient care, the staff at LSH continue to both help our patients and help others around the country understand more about how to help patients gain competence.
Living with mental illness is difficult. It is even more difficult to deal both with mental illness and legal charges. While we still do not have all the answers for how to best treat every individual with these difficulties, we are always working toward helping each of our patients work toward recovery and meaningful lives beyond hospitals and the legal system.