Charges vs. incompetent defendant dismissed

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The Supreme Judicial Court has ordered the dismissal of criminal charges against Stanley V. Sharris, who has been deemed incompetent to stand trial since being charged with murder in the first degree and interfering with a firefighter in 1994.

“The nature of the defendant’s mental impairment, a form of alcohol-induced dementia, is such that it is permanent, degenerative, and not amenable to any form of treatment,” Justice Frank M. Gaziano wrote for the court.

“He is civilly committed to the Department of Mental Health (DMH), and is being cared for in an unlocked wing of a public hospital operated by the Department of Public Health (DPH),” he noted.

“[W]e conclude that maintaining  pending charges against an incompetent defendant in those rare circumstances, such as here, where a defendant will never regain competency, and where maintaining the charges does not serve the compelling State interest of protecting the public, is a violation of the defendant’s substantive due process rights,” Gaziano stated.

The 29-page decision is Sharris v. Commonwealth, Lawyers Weekly No. 10-161-18.

Click here to read the full text of the opinion.