Have the Courts Abdicated Their Responsibility for Determination of Competency to Stand Trial to Clinicians?

ABSTRACT

The agreement rate between mental health professionals' opinions and court determinations of competency to stand trial is typically above 90%. Scant research has been conducted regarding competency judgment discrepancies between forensic examiners and the court. This study investigated (a) the concordance rate between mental health professionals' opinions regarding competency and the courts' determinations of competency for 328 defendants referred for competency evaluation in Alabama, and (b) the quality of the reports in terms of whether or not they contained specific content as set out in Alabama statute. It was found that in all but one case the court accepted the mental health professionals' recommendations. Additionally, the reports were found to be lacking in specific information required by the courts. Further investigation of this high concordance rate has revealed a tendency on the part of judges to regard forensic examiners as the expert and to prefer that the examiner make the determination of competency rather than leave it to the court to make a legal determination. The pitfalls of this approach are discussed, and implications for the practice of mental health professionals in this area are delineated.

KEYWORDS:

• Competency to stand trial
• adjudicative competence
• forensic evaluation
• forensic assessment