NCJ Number
186493
Journal
Criminal Justice and Policy Review Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Dated: March 2000 Pages: 16-43
Date Published
March 2000
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This analysis of hearings used to determine competency to stand trial (CST) focuses on the problems stemming from both the legal standard and the psychological procedures used, with emphasis on pretrial issues related to pro se defense and questionable competency screenings.
Abstract
CST determinations require an adherence to legal adjudication standards and psychological assessment methods. However, questions persist about the vague and ambiguous nature of the precedent-setting United States Supreme Court case law on mental illness and competency as applied to particular defendants. In addition, the clinical evaluation procedures pose sufficient validity and reliability problems that the assessment instruments themselves have been the source of considerable consternation. The result has been that the medicolegal system has sometimes allowed controversial and profoundly disturbed defendants such as Colin Ferguson to pro se their cases. It has also rendered questionable psychological screenings for high-profile CST cases such as Theodore Kaczynski. The analysis concludes that the CST legal construct and the diagnostic instruments used to assess mental ability have largely failed to assist lower court judges in rendering appropriate determinations. Therefore, trial judges must come to regard forensic psychological assessments as informational in nature and not dispositional for the CST finding and that legal reforms should take place to implement this policy recommendation. Overall, the legal and clinical communities need to rethink the relationship between CST dynamics and the administration of justice. Notes and 80 references (Author abstract modified)