Indiana v. Davis: revisiting due process rights of permanently incompetent defendants.

Long-term competence restoration.

While the United States Supreme Court's Jackson v. Indiana decision and most state statutes mandate determinations of incompetent defendants' restoration probabilities, courts and forensic clinicians continue to lack empirical evidence to guide these determinations and do not yet have a consensus regarding whether and under what circumstances incompetent defendants are restorable. The evidence ...

When Restoration Fails: One State's Answer to the Dilemma of Permanent Incompetence.

The landmark 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Jackson v. Indiana prohibited the indefinite commitment of criminal defendants on grounds of incompetence to stand trial if there was no substantial probability of restoration to competency in the foreseeable future. Such defendants are still subject to ordinary civil commitment; however, not all will meet civil commitment criteria, given that th...

Revisiting Roe v. Wade: substance and process in the abortion debate.

Decisionmaking for the incompetent terminally ill patient: a compromise in a solution eliminates a compromise of patients' rights.

Right to Counsel in Juvenile Court 50 Years After In re Gault.

The 20th century U.S. Supreme Court advanced the Constitutional rights of adult criminal defendants. Although far reaching in their impact, these constitutional protections were not afforded to juveniles. For example, the Supreme Court held in Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) that indigent adult defendants in felony cases have a right to counsel as a matter of due process, but did not extend this ri...