Mental Health and the Courts: The Crisis with Competency to Stand Trial

Court Leader's Advantage

Tuesday, January 18, 2022, Court Leader’s Advantage Podcast Episode

In November we started our discussion on how mental illness is impacting our nation and particularly our courts. In this episode, we are taking a deeper dive into the criminal justice realm, specifically the challenge of competency to stand trial. The task of determining if a defendant is competent to stand trial, to assist in one’s own defense can be daunting. The road to restoring a defendant to competency can be arduous and leave some people in an incarcerated limbo for weeks or even months.

This month is the second of our five-episode discussion with members of the National Judicial Task Force to Examine State Courts’ Response to Mental Illness. Some of the questions we will explore include:

· What are some of the specific challenges surrounding competency to stand trial?

· What is being done to overcome those challenges on both the national and the community level? and

· What recommendations does the Task Force have for us?

Our panel today includes:

· The Honorable Nan Waller, Judge of the 4thJudicial District in Portland, Oregon and

· Richard Schwermer, with the National Center for State Courts and Retired State Court Administrator for the state of Utah.