Competency Is Not Criminal Responsibility: Keeping Two New York Standards Apart

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Criminal Competency and Responsibility

Two familiar phrases in criminal forensic work—"competency" and "criminal responsibility"—sit on different clocks, draw on different evidence, and answer to different statutes. An opinion that lets one bleed into the other is usually the one that does not survive cross-examination. Two questions, two clocks Fitness to proceed is a present-tense question: can this defendant, as he sits in the courtroom now, understand the proceedings and assist in his own defense. New York frames it as incapacity owing to mental disease or defect to understand the proceedings or to assist in one's own defense (CPL 730.10[1]). The reference point is today, and the answer can change—a defendant unfit in March m

Most relevant service: Competency & Criminal Responsibility Evaluations