Previous articles have addressed the ethical and legal issues involved
when private psychiatrists perform forensic evaluations on criminal d
efendants before the defendants have access to counsel; but there have
been few studies addressing evaluations requested through public faci
lities and by clinicians other than psychiatrists, The authors present
the results of a detailed study of defendants admitted for evaluation
s of competency to proceed to a forensic inpatient unit in one state,
as well as data from a national survey of state forensic facilities, T
he studies were designed to measure the incidence of unrepresented def
endants in a population referred for competency evaluation, as well as
to examine the reasons for such occurrences. The data reveal that cou
rt-ordered evaluations of unrepresented defendants are rare, but conti
nue to exist,