State v. Maule

A trial court has considerable latitude in choosing the procedure for determining competency, and may proceed by any means which permits the parties to be heard and allows the court to make a well-informed judg*889ment. The chief issue in this case is whether due process requires that defense counsel be permitted to cross-examine a child witness at a pretrial competency hearing. We hold that precluding such cross-examination does not necessarily violate due process.

Here, counsel’s proposed examination would not have been helpful to the determination of competency, and the procedure for…