Was I wrongfully considered incompetent?

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Before I stood in front of the judge, I told my laywer I had ptsd in the past because of childhood abuse. He told the judge I was incompetent and I was in jail for 8 months when I should have been there for 10 days. I was educated at the graduate level. Can't believe I was considered incompetent. I got a vandalism charge for breaking my parents stuff.

Attorney Answer

1
Gayle Gutekunst ·
When an attorney (or the judge) has a reason to believe that an accused might not meet one of the following criterion, s/he has an obligation to notify the court. They are: that due to a mental disability the accused cannot understand the proceedings or cannot assist counsel. Google CA Penal Code secs. 1367 and 1368. Those are the statutes which define "incompetency" and the procedure in place to address that question during criminal proceedings. As you can see, the issue of "competence" in a criminal proceeding is narrowly focused on this issue. It does not have the scope of other competence-type issues raised in court, such as a finding under Welfare & Institutions Code sec 5150, et al. where the question is: Can this person care for himself or is he a danger to himself (his well-being) or others? There should be two, or possibly three, independent reports by mental health professionals who assessed your competence while you were in custody. Ask your attorney for those reports. This is a conversation you should be having with your attorney. If you have a mental health treating professional, perhaps you can discuss this with him/her; this treating professional can probably get those reports from the examining doctors themselves. But this is not a question we can answer for you here. Good luck to you.
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