LANCASTER, Ohio -- The case of a 13-year-old who stole a truck and caused a fatal pileup shows a gap in juvenile law in Ohio that judges would like to close.

Charges were dropped against Charles D. Shoemaker, now 15, when he was found incompetent to stand trial.

Unlike adult criminal law, juvenile law in Ohio is silent on competency. The law doesn't spell out standards for performing competency evaluations or say what judges are supposed to do when juveniles are found incompetent.

That leaves juvenile judges to develop their own procedures on how to handle youthful defendants who are found to be incompetent because of mental illness, mental retardation and developmental disabilities or young age.

A juvenile-competency proposal drafted by an Ohio Supreme Court committee is nearly ready to be introduced as legislation.

Judges and the state bar association have endorsed the proposal, and Gov. Ted Strickland's administration is reviewing it, said Corey Schaal, who manages the Supreme Court's specialized-docket section and helped develop the proposal.

The proposal would establish a framework and timeline for procedures that juvenile judges would follow in ordering competency evaluations and in handling juveniles found to be incompetent.

No one tracks the number of juvenile-competency evaluations sought statewide or their results, but juvenile judges said they perceive an increase.

Judge Steven O. Williams of Fairfield County Juvenile Court has been dealing with Shoemaker since the boy crashed a stolen delivery truck along Rt. 33A south of Lancaster on Nov. 16, 2007. The crash killed one person and left three people with disabling injuries.

Last week, Williams dismissed an involuntary manslaughter charge against Shoemaker after three psychological evaluations agreed that he was incompetent and could not assist his defense attorney.

The judge ordered the teen to remain at Safehouse Residential Services in Warren in northeastern Ohio. He had sent Shoemaker there a year ago in an effort to increase his competence.

Shoemaker will remain in the custody of Fairfield County Child Protective Services until he is 18 or 21, depending on when he completes high school. "He is a special-education student, so it's hard to tell how long his education has to be," Williams said.

The judge developed the plan on his own. "We're operating in the dark a little bit," he said. "We have to try to fashion something that makes sense."

David Hejmanowski, a Delaware County Juvenile Court magistrate, agreed that it's time to standardize competency proceedings. His county's juvenile court receives two to five requests for competency evaluations per month, and urban juvenile courts receive more. Last year, Cuyahoga County's juvenile court diagnostic center conducted 45 competency evaluations, Schaal said.

The trend toward more criminal penalties for juveniles is driving the increase in requests for competency evaluations, Hejmanowski said.

"We're trying to close the statutory gap to, at least, give courts more guidance," said Hejmanowski, who served on the committee that drafted the proposal. "There are, really, 88 counties handling this 88 different ways."

Among the issues that now arise: whether to hold the juvenile to restore competency and how long to wait, whether medications can be forcibly given, and where parents fit in.

Criminal charges against incompetent juveniles must be dismissed, as Williams did with Shoemaker's. The judge still controls the teen under the separate dependency case.

"It comes up more than you would think," said Williams. "I've had several lately where a kid has real mental problems, you find out he's incompetent and you want to do something to help and yet" there is no mechanism.

And no money.

Even if Ohio joins other states that have juvenile-competency laws, Schaal said, where to treat incompetent juveniles and how to pay are challenges.

There are no public mental-health hospitals for juveniles in Ohio, and the state budget crisis drove Strickland to close two adult state hospitals recently.

The private treatment to which the judge committed Shoemaker costs about $58,000 a year, said lawyer Jim Fields.

Fields has represented other juveniles charged with felony-level offenses whose cases were dismissed because they were incompetent.

"I can have a child found incompetent, the charge is dismissed, we walk out of the courtroom, but what have I done to help the child?" he said.

mlane@dispatch.com