PUBLIC EVALUATIONS OF UNREPRESENTED DEFENDANTS

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,