When the question of a defendant's competence to stand trial is raised, he is ordered by the court to undergo examination by a mental health evaluator, typically a forensic psychiatrist or psychologist. 1, 2 Stone is often quoted as stating that competence to stand trial “… is, in fact, the most significant mental health inquiry pursued in the system of criminal law” (Ref. Trial competence protects the defendant's right to present a defense as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and serves to maintain fairness in, and the dignity of, the court. The legal system in the United States requires that criminal defendants be competent to stand trial. Suggestions for practicing forensic evaluators are offered. This article is a review of the mental condition requirement in competence to stand trial laws, using Ohio as an example, and how this term has been interpreted (or misinterpreted) by mental health evaluators and the legal system. Moreover, Ohio's adjudicative competency statute does not explain what conditions or symptoms constitute a mental condition sufficient to render a defendant incompetent. Some forensic mental health evaluators have treated the mental-condition requirement as synonymous with, or similar to, the psychiatric condition required in the state's insanity criteria, which requires a “severe mental disease or defect.” Yet the term mental condition does not appear in other areas of the state's criminal code or in the state's definition of a mental illness for purposes of civil commitment. In Ohio, a criminal defendant is incompetent to stand trial only if “a present mental condition” renders him unable to understand the nature and objectives of the proceedings against him or to assist in his defense.
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