In my opinion, the intended implications of the Dusky ruling were to keep the mentally ill out of the criminal justice system and allow these people to get the treatment they need. However, I do not believe this has been the actual implications of the ruling. According to the research there are ten times as many individuals with serious mental illness in jails and state prisons than there are in state mental hospitals. To me, this is absolutely astounding. One of the thousands of people in prison with a severe mental illness is Colin Ferguson, whom was found competent to stand trial despite his bizarre behavior in the court room. Although Ferguson was identified by several witnesses as the shooter in the massacre on a commuter train in New York, he insisted he was not the shooter and that a white man had taken the gun and framed him. Allowing Ferguson to not only stand trial but to also represent himself is, in my eyes, an injustice. He clearly did not understand the evidence against him, nor was he able to adequately defend himself because of his extreme paranoia and …show more content…
However, it is also my belief that this has not been the case at all. There are more mentally ill individuals in the criminal justice system nationally than in mental hospitals, this is not because the mentally ill are violent and deserve to be in prison, it is because we as a nation have not come together to figure out a way to help these individuals and get them help rather than worsening their condition in prison. The threshold for competency to stand trial is outrageously low and needs to be revised and uniformed for the entire nation. People like Ralph Tortoricci, Collin Ferguson and Robbie Bishop deserve help not