Arizona court committee proposes standardized Rule 11 evaluator guidelines and a fix for dangerous, unrestorable defendants
The Committee on Mental Health and the Justice System, created by Administrative Order 2018-71 and chaired by Kent Batty, submitted its interim report to the Arizona Judicial Council for action on October 24, 2019. Much of the report concerns the broader courts-and-mental-health picture, but several recommendations target the competency system directly.
The committee proposed standard templates for the guidelines and forms that mental health experts use in Rule 11 competency proceedings, to be built into the Administrative Office of the Courts' Legal Competency and Restoration Conference training. It also called for continued work on how A.R.S. 13-4503(E) and Rule 11.2 operate in misdemeanor cases in limited-jurisdiction courts, and floated a university-court partnership for ongoing evaluator training.
A second proposal, drafted as a bill in Appendix E, addresses a gap between the criminal and civil systems: dangerous defendants with mental illness who are found incompetent and unrestorable again and again, and keep returning to the community. The committee recommended amending both Title 13 and Title 36 of the state code to close that gap.
Source: Committee on Mental Health and the Justice System Interim Report and Recommendations — Arizona Supreme Court (Arizona Judicial Council), by Arizona Supreme Court Committee on Mental Health and the Justice System
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