In: Psychology
IS THE INCOMPETENCY TO STAND TRIAL A VALID ARGUMENT FOR THE DEFENSE TO PRODUCE? EXPLAIN YOUR POSITION.
Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.
(Answer) When one is on trial, it would entail things such as producing witnesses, being a witness if necessary, stating under oath, making serious claims and accusations, producing evidence against the defense etc. Let us assume that the person who would be doing all of this, isn’t of a sound mind. Perhaps, that person might suffer from a cognitive disorder like psychosis, anxiety or other such issues.
Being in an impaired mental and emotional state would greatly affect the validity of their statements and evidence as it would not be as objective anymore. Furthermore, an improper cognitive state could even cause the person to commit perjury, producing false leads or other serious offenses. Under all these possible circumstances, the defendant would be completely justified to claim incompetency as a valid argument. In other words, one has to be of a sound mind in order to responsibly accommodate the gravitas of the seriousness of the legal system.