Opinion ID: 1642921
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Failure to determine competency to stand trial.

Text: ¶ 30. Knox next argues that, considering his head injury and his attempt to obtain Social Security disability benefits, trial counsel should have asked that the circuit court make a determination as to Knox's competency before trial. Knox states that failure to ask for such a determination despite the warning signs available to counsel amounts to ineffective assistance. Knox cites Agan v. Singletary, 12 F.3d 1012 (11th Cir.1994); Bouchillon v. Collins, 907 F.2d 589 (5th Cir.1990); Jackson v. State, 857 S.W.2d 678 (Tex.Ct. App.1993); and State v. Green, 632 So.2d 1187 (La.Ct.App.1994). In all of these cases counsel was found to ineffective for failure to investigate competency or some other aspect of the client's mental state or failure to object when the statutory means for determining competency was not followed. There was also medical evidence of mental illness, insanity, retardation and substance abuse presented in each of these cases. Knox has presented no such evidence in this case. He has not supplied an affidavit from any doctor or mental health professional which states that he is incompetent now or that he was incompetent at the time of his trial. Absent some evidence of this type, the case law cited by Knox is irrelevant. ¶ 31. Knox next argues that appellate counsel was ineffective for failure to raise as error on appeal the circuit court's failure to order a competency examination even where none requested. Neither Knox nor the State cite authority from this Court stating that the failure to ask for a competency hearing, by itself, amounts to ineffective assistance of counsel. Absent some substantial evidence, in addition to the medical and Social Security records already produced, which raises a legitimate question concerning Knox's competence, we find that trial counsel was not ineffective here.