Competency to Stand Trial report template
A sanitized, court-ready CST report skeleton in Word format. Organized around the Dusky standard, with the sections evaluators are cross-examined on: notification of limits of confidentiality, complete source listing, competency-related abilities by prong, opinion language, and restorability.
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Ten sections, built for cross-examination
The template follows the structure courts and opposing counsel expect from an adjudicative competence evaluation. It opens with identifying information and the referral question stated in the language of the court order, followed by the notification of purpose and limits of confidentiality, documented rather than assumed. A numbered sources-of-information section comes next, because a complete source list is the first thing opposing counsel checks.
History sections are scoped to what bears on the competency question: psychiatric, medical, substance use, educational, and legal history including prior competency findings. Behavioral observations and mental status findings follow, then psychological testing with validity and response style addressed before substantive results, with prompts for competency-specific instruments such as the ECST-R and MacCAT-CA.
The core of the report organizes findings under the three competency-related ability areas drawn from Dusky: factual understanding of the proceedings, rational understanding of the proceedings, and the ability to assist counsel. Each subsection prompts for supporting data, quotes, test results, and specific exchanges, so no conclusion stands as a bare assertion. The report closes with an opinion section keyed to the governing statute, a restorability and recommendations section covering Sell considerations where relevant, and an attestation block.
Every heading, table, and guidance note is editable. Placeholders are bracketed, and italic guidance notes explain what belongs in each section before you delete them.
About this template
Is this template jurisdiction-specific?
No. It is organized around the Dusky standard, which most state statutes track, and it flags every place where the language must be conformed to your jurisdiction's statute and your court's order. Citations to Dusky and Sell are included as anchors, not as legal advice.
Where does the template come from?
It is the sanitized skeleton of the CST report template that ships inside Boreas Workflow, where it is populated from the case file: intake data, instrument scores, interview records, and the clinician's signed diagnostic decisions.
Can I use it in my own practice without Boreas?
Yes. It is a standard Word document with no macros and no lock-in. If you later want the version that fills itself from an audit-logged case file, that is what the software does.
What do you do with my email?
We send the template, and occasionally new templates and forensic practice content. No list sales, no spam, unsubscribe any time.
The template is the skeleton. Boreas writes the first draft.
Boreas Workflow is a local-first desktop IDE for forensic evaluation. Case data never leaves your machine, every diagnostic decision is rendered and signed by you before the writing assistant drafts a line, and the full decision trail is exportable for discovery. Reports come out in your voice, structured like this template, in a fraction of the writing time.