(Download) "De Bogart v. United States" by United States Court Of Appeals Fifth Circuit. * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: De Bogart v. United States
- Author : United States Court Of Appeals Fifth Circuit.
- Release Date : January 28, 1962
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 59 KB
Description
This case presents again the difficult problem of determining the question of mental competency to stand trial for a criminal charge. Difficult it is, at least in the sense that since this reflects our basic notion that those incapable of understanding the nature of the proceedings taking place ought not to be tried, every case must be measured in like terms of fundamental satisfaction of that ideal. That invariably complicates the matter. For it may seldom any longer be true that the answer may be found in the simple terms of compliance or non-compliance with a specific statute. That certainly is true when the attack on mental competency to stand trial is asserted by post-conviction remedies of a collateral kind such as habeas corpus, or, for federal prisoners, 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255. All this adds up to make it even more difficult from the standpoint of the busy trial Judge faced with an overpowering docket. Thus he must make so many judgments in borderline situations whether, in any given case, a substantial enough showing is reflected in papers - often unartfully drawn by earnest but untrained laymen - to require a judicial hearing to determine the real medico-legal fact. If a District Judge may not satisfy the duty to provide a judicial ascertainment of the fact in a proper case - and it is certain he may not - merely because some statutory mechanisms relating to mentally incompetent defendants is utilized or ignored, then by the same token the Judges actions are not to be declared erroneous simply because he uses the wrong statute, or a right statute in a wrong way. What he does, just as what he does not do, must be scrutinized in terms of the real substance of things.