Competency evaluation (law)

In the United States criminal justice system, a competency evaluation is an assessment of the ability of a defendant to understand and rationally participate in a court process.

Competency was originally established by the Supreme Court of the United States as the evaluation of a defendant's competence to proceed to trial. In a subsequent ruling, the Court held that any prisoner facing the death penalty must be evaluated as competent to be executed, meaning that he must be capable of understanding why he has received the death penalty and the effect that the penalty will have. In further rulings, competence was also enlarged to include evaluation of the defendant's competence to plead guilty and competence to waive the right to counsel.

The American Bar Association's Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards stated in 1994 that the issue of a defendant's current mental incompetence is the single most important issue in the criminal mental health field, noting that an estimated 24,000 to 60,000 forensic evaluations of a criminal defendant's competency to stand trial were performed every year in the United States. A 1973 estimate put the number of competence evaluations at 25,000 to 36,000 each year. There are indications that the number of evaluations of criminal defendants is rising. One comparison of estimates between 1983 and 2004 suggest the annual number rose from 50,000 to 60,000 criminal competency evaluations respectively.

This standard is based on the Supreme Court decision Dusky v. United States in which the Court affirmed a defendant's right to have a competency evaluation before proceeding to trial. Competence to proceed was defined by the court as the defendant's ability to consult rationally with an attorney to aid in his own defense and to have a rational and factual understanding of the charges.

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