QUESTION

Once courts find that doubt of defendant’s competence to stand trial, shouldn't there be a hearing held on issue?

Asked on Jun 13th, 2016 on Criminal Law - Utah
More details to this question:
My appointed attorney made false statements about my behavior to bring up competent issue. I have never been given the opportunity to work on my defense with him being that he had only offered pleas as his advice. He never made any motion of any kind until one week before trial was set to begin. I had concerns if his was competent since we had never discussed my side of the case. He hadn't suppressed or motion. He was all about pleas. This case has been since November 2013 executed search. They had surveillance on someone who used to rent a room from me. I had to evict him for non-payment of rent few weeks earlier. I was out of town when this happened. My 17 year old son was home. I was called I talked to the detective who said I wasn't in trouble. He just wants to talk about the incident and the roommate. He said they found a pipe with residue on a shelf in the garage. When we were able to meet up, they came to my house and recorded our conversation. He said they found my fingerprints on the pipe. I had no knowledge of pipe in the garage. They tried to get me to say it was mine. But I said that it is not mine. In May 2014, I was served with book and release. I now have been to court 15 times. I am not taking a plea or giving up my important rights. I am willing to take my chances in trial. My attorney couldn't have been ready for trial. We had never even had a conversation of my side of this incident. Now he sure got busy with this competency issue. I have already had two expert evaluation. The other was assuming my attorney was providing adequate counsel. I was competent/without evaluation were done on August 15 2014 and September 23 2014. After without my knowledge, he motion for his expert witness to assess the conflicting evaluation. In the meantime on an addendum to proceed changed on April 5th 2016, why? Then again appointed attorney motioned for expert witness. It was denied and court ordered third competency.
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1 ANSWER

Estate Planning Attorney serving Provo, UT at Randy M. Lish, Attorney at Law
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Whenever I have had two experts disagree about competency, the court had invariably ordered a third evaluation. I would try to get the public defender's office to get a different attorney to represent me. If you can afford it, hire your own private attorneys usually have about one-third of the number of cases a public defender has, and are more likely to have the time to prepare adequately for a trial.
Answered on Jul 18th, 2016 at 6:42 AM

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