Miscellaneous

What Were You Thinking?! (or Were They?) Juvenile Competency Issues

By Anne Skove, Esq.

"Put on your socks."
"I can't find them!"
"Look for them!"
"I *am* looking!"

[Note: socks are within 5 inches of his body.]

Welcome to a typical morning at our house! We love our kids, but the idea of competency and children sometimes seems like an oxymoron. How else to explain the chronic sock-loss, mysterious backpack disappearances, and general disarray of the world's (otherwise) smartest kids? It's true, their brains just work differently.

Juvenile courts struggle with competency issues, too. Many states have developed different competency standards for juveniles. Ohio, though, still relies on the adult standard. Given the sock problem stated above, not to mention the myriad other examples you can probably think of, this standard puts juvenile court judges in a difficult place.

It puts children in an even worse place. According to one account (see article below), few children are even evaluated for competency. Now the courts, legislature, and others are working to create juvenile-specific standards.

Under the proposal, mental illness and/or disability would be considered when determining competency. When competency is raised, juveniles would be evaluated and a competency hearing would be held. The juvenile would have to attain competency before the case could go forward. If the juvenile never reached competency, the case would be dismissed and a dependency proceeding would ensue.

The judicial impact statement for this proposal notes that "the most important issues with regard to juvenile competency are funding and the related need for a juvenile mental health facility." If this legislation is unsuccessful, we bet that the money and facilities hurdles will be the cause.

See Juvenile Courts Unsure How to Deal with Dangerous Teens Incompetent for Trial, Rachel Dissell, Plain Dealer (June 12, 2008). See also Juvenile Justice State Legislation in 2006, NCSL (January 31, 2007), and Juvenile Competency to Stand Trial: Questions in an Era of Punitive Reform, Thomas Grisso, ABA (no date -- there's never a date on ABA pubs!). Compare the Indiana case described in Juvenile Competence to Stand Trial, Jonathan W. Sirkin, Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (2005).

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on June 14, 2008 (boomark / email).