Office of the Mental Health Advocate

A Victory for Competency

Jo-Carol Nesset Sale speaking about the Sims case at a recent OMHA public defender training

Congratulations to Jo-Carol Nesset Sale, and the other team of lawyers that assisted in the victory of
the Sims case. The Georgia Supreme Court decided in Sims v. State that the " 'any evidence' standard
of review thwarts genuine review of an appeal from a verdict of competency because the presumption
of competency would always provide some evidence in support of a finding of competency."

Instead, Georgia appellate courts will now review decisions regarding competency under the following
standard, "whether after reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, a rational trier of
fact could have found that the defendant failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he
was incompetent to stand trial."

The Court reviewed the facts of the case on its own (including that Sims has an IQ of 45 and functions
at the mental age of a seven-year-old) and reversed the trial court's finding that Willie Sims was
competent to stand trial.

This is a wonderful victory and the product of a lot of hard work on the part of Sims' lawyers.

For more information go to www.gasupreme.us case# SO4G1689 decided June 6, 2005.