{"id":1040,"date":"2025-10-31T15:11:56","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T22:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/scribe\/?p=1040"},"modified":"2026-04-11T15:12:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T22:12:43","slug":"talking-about-competency-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/scribe\/2025\/10\/31\/talking-about-competency-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking about Competency (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Talking about Competency (Part 1)<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n By<\/span>Alex Evans<\/a><\/strong>\n \n October 31, 2025<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Part one of this discussion will create a working definition of competency and broadly set terms for how to talk about competency, in any capacity, legal or non-legal. Parts two and three will continue to look at examples where competency may come up and the broader implications of competency determinations respectively.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When competency is brought up in the context of law, the most important question to ask is \u201ccompetence to do what?\u201d Too often people make sweeping over-generalized statements about competence that are not reflective of the criteria at hand. Competency comes up in many different scenarios including but not limited to competency to stand trial, competency to make a will and competency to consent to care.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As reflected by this list of statements, quesitons of competency appear in this formula: competency + verb (give, accept, release, represent, waive, plea, exercise). It is incredibly important that every reference to competency appears in this formula, otherwise, there is a risk that all of these very different actions are comflated under someone\u2019s general \u201ccompetency.\u201d As much as people are referred to plainly as \u201ccompetent\u201d or \u201cincompetent,\u201d there is truly no broad competency. Competency is something that is narrowly tailored and specific to one scenario.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, broad references to competency have become intertwined and conflated with mental health analysis. For example, this person is incometent because they are expereincing schizophrenic delusions. This language makes it seem as though this person must forfeit all of their autonomy over personal decisions and lifestyle choices because of their mental health condition. This is incredibly harmful and dehumanizing to assume, attributing importance to why we must pay attention to how we speak about competence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, people need to understand that competence depends entirely on what someone is being asked to do, there is no broad \u201ccompetence\u201d that one has or does not have. Now, we will look at an example where competency comes up in part two: competence to stand trial.<\/span><\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/span><\/p>\n

Pleasants, Gregory. \u201cConflation of Mental Health versus Legal Standards.\u201d LAW 403: Mental Health Law, Jan. 23, 2024, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Lecture.<\/span><\/p>\n

Slobogin, Christopher, et al. <\/span>Law and the Mental Health System: Civil and Criminal Aspects<\/span><\/i>. West Academic Publishing, 2020.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1038,"featured_media":652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,12],"tags":[14,16,15],"class_list":["post-1040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor-blogs","category-law-and-society","tag-alex-evans","tag-fall-2025","tag-law-and-society"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTalking about Competency (Part 1)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/scribe\/2025\/10\/31\/talking-about-competency-part-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Talking about Competency (Part 1) - 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