Workshop

Date: Friday, 9/25

Time: 4-5:15pm

Centering around a pair of recent companion Massachusetts cases, S.W. v. Commonwealth, 497 Mass. 597 (2026) and R.D. v. Commonwealth, 497 Mass. 608 (2026), this presentation will focus on the legal implications of courts ordering competency evaluations that also compel criminal defendants to undergo involuntary inpatient mental health treatment, even when they could have instead been evaluated on an outpatient basis. In S.W. and R.D., the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that the trial court’s detention orders of two individuals while they awaited inpatient competency evaluations were unlawful but upheld their commitment orders for involuntary inpatient mental health treatment based on the individual facts in the case. We will discuss these cases and the issues raised including liberty interests and related due process protections and disability discrimination with respect to access to bail, pretrial release, and dismissal of charges, among others. The goal of the presentation is to raise awareness of these issues and to facilitate a robust discussion to understand what is happening in jurisdictions outside of Massachusetts and available legal and policy strategies to address these issues.