Five-Year Trends in Juvenile Adjudicative Competency Evaluations: One State’s Consideration of Developmental Immaturity, Age, and Psychopathology

ABSTRACT

Juvenile adjudicative competency evaluations are on the rise, but basing decisions of competency on developmental factors remains highly debated. Most states do not provide explicit guidelines to address developmental factors within juvenile competency statutes despite substantial evidence demonstrating the impact of age and developmental immaturity on competence-related functional abilities. Examination of 649 archived juvenile competency to proceed evaluations in Colorado (from the years 2014–2018) furthered our understanding of the degree to which factors such as age, psychopathology, and developmental immaturity are considered by evaluators determining juvenile adjudicative competence. Based off of existing literature, we hypothesized that juveniles with neurodevelopmental disorders, intellectual disabilities, a younger age, and a lack of developmental maturity would have higher rates of incompetence. Results demonstrated that evaluators were more likely to opine incompetence in adolescents with an intellectual disability (84.8%) or neurodevelopmental disorder (71.8%). Youth aged 12 and younger were more likely to be opined incompetent (OR = 3.21) and were rated as having a poorer or more guarded prognosis for restoration (OR = 2.01) compared to older adolescents. Furthermore, developmental immaturity was cited most frequently in this younger age group. The identification of salient factors considered by evaluators may inform policy, practice, and adolescent-based competency restoration efforts.

KEYWORDS:

• Juvenile competence
• developmental immaturity
• adjudicative competence
• competence to stand trial
• juvenile defendants

Disclosure statement

There was no financial interest or benefit from completing this research.

Data availability statement

All de-identified data for this research was securely retained by Rose Manguso, PhD, ABPP at Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo.

Data deposition

We will not be choosing to share or make the data underlying the study open. We utilized protected, archival data from patient records. In order to meet institutional requirements for conducting ethical research with human participants, a research proposal was submitted to and approved by the facility’s privacy and research review board.

Additional information

Funding

There was no funding needed or costs associated with this research.