Competency vs. Insanity

Competency to stand trial demands that a defendant understands the purpose and nature of the legal proceedings and be able to cooperate effectively with counsel in defense. To appreciate the proceedings, a defendant has to be able to understand the charges and the penalties if convicted. On the other hand, sanity refers to the defendant mental status while committing a crime. A defendant is considered insane if the act’s commission was due to mental defect or disease, and thus lacking, the capacity either to conform his act to the law’s requirement or appreciate the wrongfulness of his act (Stafford  & Sellbom, n.d.).
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The legal standard employed to establish competency through evaluation demand that a forensic psychiatrist employ mental status examination to evaluate the general mental health of the defendant. This includes cognitive ability, memory, judgment, understanding and appreciation. The psycholegal questions that need to be address include the current mental state of the defendant. This is to evaluate whether the current mental state of the defendant is healthy enough for the defendant to understand the charges, penalties involved, to follow the court proceeding and to liaise with the counsel for his or her defense (Stafford  & Sellbom, n.d.).
 On the other hand, the legal standards used to identify insanity through the evaluation of the defendant state of mind while committing the crime. The Psycholegal questions to be evaluated is, was the defendant drunk or intoxicated, was he/she depressed, mentally ill or in any other condition that could have prevented him from understanding what he was doing?
A mentally ill individual can be both insane and incompetent based on when the condition started. If he was mentally ill during the incident and still is during the trial, then he is insane and cannot be responsible for the crime. If insane he will be acquitted and thus, he will not have to stand trials, though even if he does will be considered incompetent to stand trial since the condition still prevails.   
When a defendant is found incompetent to stand trials, the case may be delayed to give the defendant an opportunity to be treated and gain competency. Therefore, the defendant should be forced to undergo medical treatment to gain competency if possible. A good example for this is the case the man who was involved in Arizona shooting in January 2011. The judge suspended the case until Jared Loughner was more competent to stand before the court (N.a., 2011). 



References
N.a. (2011). Competency versus insanity. Criminal Law Consulting. Retrieved from  < http://www.criminallawconsulting.com/1/post/2011/09/competency-versus-insanity.html>

Stafford, K. P., & Sellbom, M. O. (n.d.) Assessment of competence to stand trial Chapter 18. Retrieved form < http://lp.wileypub.com/HandbookPsychology/SampleChapters/Volume11.pdf>
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