Supreme Court of Georgia
Carr v. the State.
June 18, 2018815 S.E.2d 903
Summary
The court held that detention under OCGA § 17-7-130 (c) may last only for the reasonable time necessary to determine whether an incompetent defendant is likely to regain competency, although Carr had not shown that the duration of his detention was unreasonable. It further held that automatically detaining every defendant charged with a violent offense, without an individualized determination that inpatient evaluation is reasonably related to the evaluation objective, violates due process. The court reversed the statute's constitutionality ruling, vacated the inpatient-detention order, affirmed the unchallenged incompetency finding, and remanded for an individualized detention determination.