{"id":416,"date":"2018-10-26T10:46:14","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T14:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tampacriminallawyer.net\/?p=416"},"modified":"2026-01-07T12:31:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T17:31:23","slug":"florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Appeals Court Addresses Competency Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In order to stand trial, the defendant must be competent. The bar for competency is pretty low in a criminal proceeding, however. The defendant needs to be able to have enough rational understanding to be able to aid their lawyer in their own defense, and they must have a rational or factual understanding of the proceedings against him. Keep in mind that this is different from using an \u201cinsanity defense.\u201d Competency has to do with the defendant\u2019s mental state at trial, while an insanity defense relates to the defendant\u2019s mental state during the commission of the crime. The law can be complicated, but your experienced Tampa criminal defense attorney can help you understand how the law applies in your case.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Stipulation to Competency<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In a case recently heard by the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal, the court addressed when it\u2019s allowable for the defendant\u2019s attorney to stipulate to the defendant\u2019s competency. In the case at issue, the defendant was originally charged with second degree murder and two counts of dealing in stolen property. The trial court appointed an expert to determine the defendant\u2019s competency to stand trial. At the hearing, the judge stated that they had the competency report in the file and it said the defendant was competent. The defense attorney then offered to stipulate to competency. A stipulation means that they agreed to the determination. Thus, the court found the defendant competent.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Florida Appeals Court Addresses Competency Issues\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In order to stand trial, the defendant must be competent. The bar for competency is pretty low in a criminal proceeding, however. The defendant needs to be able to have enough rational understanding to be able to aid their lawyer in their own defense, and they must have a rational or factual understanding of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-violent-crime"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Florida Appeal: Competency Issues<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Understand how Florida courts handle competency problems and why mental fitness can change a plea, trial, or sentence.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Florida Appeal: Competency Issues\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Understand how Florida courts handle competency problems and why mental fitness can change a plea, trial, or sentence.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/florida-appeals-court-competency-to-stand-trial-gavel.webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hanlon Law, PA\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Florida Appeal: Competency Issues","description":"Understand how Florida courts handle competency problems and why mental fitness can change a plea, trial, or sentence.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Florida Appeal: Competency Issues","twitter_description":"Understand how Florida courts handle competency problems and why mental fitness can change a plea, trial, or sentence.","twitter_image":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/florida-appeals-court-competency-to-stand-trial-gavel.webp","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Hanlon Law, PA","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/"},"author":{"name":"Hanlon Law, PA","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8b1bbe17dcab105246cd4cb867e91837"},"headline":"Florida Appeals Court Addresses Competency Issues","datePublished":"2018-10-26T14:46:14+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-07T17:31:23+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/"},"wordCount":614,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/florida-appeals-court-competency-to-stand-trial-gavel.webp","articleSection":["Violent Crime"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/","name":"Florida Appeal: Competency Issues","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/florida-appeals-court-competency-to-stand-trial-gavel.webp","datePublished":"2018-10-26T14:46:14+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-07T17:31:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8b1bbe17dcab105246cd4cb867e91837"},"description":"Understand how Florida courts handle competency problems and why mental fitness can change a plea, trial, or sentence.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/florida-appeals-court-competency-to-stand-trial-gavel.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/florida-appeals-court-competency-to-stand-trial-gavel.webp","width":1000,"height":750,"caption":"Close-up of a judge\u2019s gavel on a desk, representing a Florida appeals court ruling on competency to stand trial"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-addresses-competency-issues\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Florida Appeals Court Addresses Competency Issues"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/","name":"Tampa Criminal Lawyer Blog","description":"Published by Tampa Criminal Attorney \u2014 Hanlon Law","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8b1bbe17dcab105246cd4cb867e91837","name":"Hanlon Law, PA","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c09dcc7ad49cb4e69012e689c8f8279e82819db3eccff0cdeeccdacb7210dc98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c09dcc7ad49cb4e69012e689c8f8279e82819db3eccff0cdeeccdacb7210dc98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c09dcc7ad49cb4e69012e689c8f8279e82819db3eccff0cdeeccdacb7210dc98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Hanlon Law, PA"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/"]}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/florida-appeals-court-competency-to-stand-trial-gavel.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1382,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/1382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}