Crazy, competent & back again

ALBANY, N.Y. — The Second Circuit remands a petition for a writ of habeas corpus and recommends a conditional writ for a defendant who confessed to murdering a relative in 2007, but was found incompetent to stand trial due to mental illness. A cycle appears to have repeated: He’d be given medication and would appear competent, then would be transferred to Rikers Island for trial but refuse the meds, then be deemed incompetent and returned to a psychiatric hospital, where the cycle renewed. The circuit asks state courts to consider determining competency closer to the trial.