standard-for-reviewing-denied-motions-for-competency-hearings

QUESTIONS PRESENTED FOR REVIEW 1. What is the correct standard for reviewing denied motions for competency hearings, under 18 U.S.C. § 4241(a) and constitutional due process? Is reversal required under either the unlimited review previously applied by the Ninth Circuit, or for abuse of discretion as applied by some other circuits, when the denied motions were supported by declarations of counsel and psychiatric reports directly connecting the defendant’s mental disorder to incompetency? 2. Where experts disagree on whether a defendant’s poor performance on a court-ordered examination is malingering or due to his autism and learning disorders, may courts treat it as a failure to submit to the examination and exclude his psychiatric expert from trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12.2, thus implicating his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to present a mental-disorder defense? 3. Does a court violate a defendant’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to represent himself, asserted 41 days before trial, by finding a purpose of delay from the defendant’s stated intention to request a continuance, no matter who represented him? What are appropriate parameters to the timeliness requirement of Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1974), and what limitations should be placed on courts’ discretion to find exceptions thereto? 4. Must courts engage in case-specific inquiries under Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 403 when grooming and compliant-victim expert testimony is challenged at trial and on appeal, which cannot be “foreclosed” by another decision’s approval of distinct grooming testimony on plain-error review? i