Criminal Court Process
Cooper v. Oklahoma (1996)
United States Supreme
Court
Summary : Defendant was convicted in the District Court, Oklahoma County,
of first degree murder, and he was sentenced to death. Defendant appealed.
The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. Certiorari was granted. The Supreme
Court, Justice Stevens, held that Oklahoma law presuming defendant is
competent to stand trial unless he proves incompetence by clear and convincing
evidence violates due process.
Reversed and remanded.
Link to full text of the case
Durham v. United States (1954)
United States
Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Summary : Defendant Monte Durham was convicted of housebreaking by the District Court sitting without a jury. The only defense offered by his counsel was that at the time of the offense, Durham was of unsound mind. The Court of Appeals, Bazelon, Circuit Judge, adopting a new test of criminal responsibility, held that if defendant’s unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect, he was not criminally responsible. The judgment was reversed.
Ford v. Wainwright (1986)
U.S. Supreme Court
Summary : In 1974, petitioner was convicted of murder in a Florida
state court and sentenced to death. There is no suggestion that he was
incompetent at the time of the offense, at trial, or at sentencing. But
subsequently he began to manifest changes in behavior, indicating a mental
disorder. This led to extensive separate examinations by two psychiatrists
at his counsel's request, one of whom concluded that petitioner was not
competent to suffer execution. Counsel then invoked a Florida statute
governing the determination of a condemned prisoner's competency. Following
the statutory procedures, the Governor appointed three psychiatrists,
who together interviewed petitioner for 30 minutes in the presence of
eight other people, including petitioner's counsel, the State's attorneys,
and correctional officials. Each psychiatrist filed a separate report
with the Governor, to whom the statute delegates the final decision.
The reports reached conflicting diagnoses but were in accord on the question
of petitioner's competency. Petitioner's counsel then attempted to submit
to the Governor other written materials, including the reports of the
two psychiatrists who had previously examined petitioner, but the Governor's
office refused to inform counsel whether the submission would be considered.
The Governor subsequently signed a death warrant without explanation
or statement. After unsuccessfully seeking a hearing in state court to
determine anew petitioner's competency, his counsel filed a habeas corpus
proceeding in Federal District Court, seeking an evidentiary hearing,
but the court denied the petition without a hearing, and the Court of
Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment.
Link to the full text of the case
Kansas v. Crane (2002)
United States Supreme
Court
Summary : In upholding the constitutionality of the Kansas Sexually
Violent Predator Act, the Court characterized a dangerous sexual offender's
confinement as civil rather than criminal, Kansas v. Hendricks, 521
U.S. 346, 369, 138 L. Ed. 2d 501, 117 S. Ct. 2072, and held that the
confinement criterion embodied in the statute's words "mental abnormality
or personality disorder" satisfied substantive due process, id., at
356, 360. Here, the Kansas District Court ordered the civil commitment
of respondent Crane, a previously convicted sexual offender. In reversing,
the State Supreme Court concluded that Hendricks requires a
finding that the defendant cannot control his dangerous behavior -- even
if (as provided by Kansas law) problems of emotional, and not volitional,
capacity prove the source of behavior warranting commitment. And the
trial court had made no such finding.
LInk to the full text of the case
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