Determining reasonableness: identification of the non-restorable person adjudicated incompetent to stand trial

ABSTRACT

Federal and state courts require forensic examiners to offer opinions concerning the likelihood of restorability of defendants. There is limited empirical guidance for determining restorability of defendants, and legislators have little data to support their decision-making regarding statutory changes to limit the period of attempted restoration for defendants. This study examined whether commonly available demographic and clinical information predicts non-restorability in hospitalized felony criminal defendants who are refractory to early interventions at restoration. Archival data from a quality assurance State Hospital, database such as demographic and clinical variables for 271 cases were analyzed using a logistic regression analysis. Lower likelihood of restoration was significantly associated with the presence of a developmental disorder, traumatic brain injury/neurological disorder, cognitive disorder, older age, and length of restoration effort. Among defendants who can attain competency to stand trial, 96% do so by the 60th treatment month. Findings indicate that restoration efforts are largely unsuccessful afterward, which suggests that readily available clinical and demographic variables can be used to reasonably predict restoration. These findings add empirical support and guidance to determining non-restorability among defendants.

KEYWORDS:

• Competency to Stand Trial
• Capacity to Stand Trial
• Competency Restoration
• RefractoryForensic Assessment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.