How Do We Make Up For This?

Jose Padilla is an American citizen.

Federal Judge Asked to Decide if Padilla Is Competent for Trial.

Mr. Padilla, 36, a United States citizen who was publicly accused of plotting a dirty bomb attack and pronounced an enemy combatant in 2002, was transferred from military custody into the civilian law enforcement system earlier this year. But, his lawyers say, he has been unable to assist in his own defense, and mental health experts have been unable to help him or to help them deal with him.

“Jose’s experience as a detainee was so traumatic that it’s physically and mentally painful for him to answer the questions that we put to him,” said Orlando do Campo, a federal public defender in Miami. “He just shuts down. We’re covering a lot of the same area as his interrogators, and he doesn’t want to relive it.”

Saying that there was “sufficient cause” to conduct a competency hearing, the government, in papers filed yesterday, urged the judge to do so.

The government itself cited the affidavit of a psychiatrist for the defense, Dr. Angela Hegarty, who said that Mr. Padilla did not understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him and that he suffered “impairment in reasoning” as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder “complicated by the effects of prolonged isolation.”

Mr. Padilla’s lawyers said he opposed this request that his competency be evaluated. Dr. Hegarty, one of two mental health professionals who examined him, said Mr. Padilla was “fearful of being thought of as crazy.” She described him as “hypervigilant,” his eyes darting about, his face twitching into grimaces, his “startle response” on constant high alert.

How far do these criminals have to go before impeachment is an option? What do you do if this is your child tortured by the self-proclaimed greatest democracy in the world?