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In United States and Canadian law [citation needed], competence concerns the mental capacity of an individual to participate in legal proceedings or transactions, and the mental condition a person must have to be responsible for his or her decisions or acts. Competence is an attribute that is decision-specific.
Affirming a criminal defendant's constitutional right to have a competency evaluation before proceeding to trial, and setting the standard for determination of such competence. BOR, 14th 1966 Pate v. Robinson: A hearing about competency to stand trial is required under the due process clause of the Constitution of the United States. [2] BOR ...
The Competency Screening Test was developed by researchers at the Harvard Laboratory of Community Psychiatry in 1971. The test uses 22 fill in the blank style questions such as "If the jury finds me guilty, I will _____." Each answer is given a score of 0 (incompetent), 1 (uncertain competence), or 2 (competent).
In the common law tradition, testamentary capacity is the legal term of art used to describe a person's legal and mental ability to make or alter a valid will. This concept has also been called sound mind and memory or disposing mind and memory .
Legal capacity is a quality denoting either the legal aptitude of a person to have rights and liabilities (in this sense also called transaction capacity), or altogether the personhood itself in regard to an entity other than a natural person (in this sense also called legal personality).
The Court had recognized these two rights on competency for some time. In Dusky v.United States, 362 U.S. 402 (1960), and in Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162 (1975), the Court established the standard for competency to stand trial—the defendant must have a "rational and factual understanding" of the nature of the proceedings, and must be able to rationally assist his lawyer in defending him.
Between 1940 and 1984, the law provided for a board of examiners to be established for each federal and penal correctional institution that would consist of three medical officers, one appointed by the warden or superintendent of the institution; another by the U.S. Attorney General; and another by the U.S. Public Health Service. [3]
List of criminal competencies is a listing of the various types of competencies relevant to the defendant in criminal law in the United States.In the U.S. the law is permeated with competency issues since a state may not subject an individual who is "incompetent" to trial on criminal charges.