Adjudicative Competence Evaluations of Juvenile and Adult Defendants: Judges' Views Regarding Essential Components of Competence Reports

Abstract

Adjudicative competence evaluations are commonly requested for adult criminal defendants, and are becoming increasingly common among juvenile defendants as well. However, we do not have an understanding of what information judges seek in these evaluations. In this study, juvenile and criminal court judges from seven states (N = 166) were surveyed. Results indicated that judges: (1) consider clinicians' ultimate opinion to be an essential component of reports, and more important than descriptive information and rationales for opinions; (2) view forensic and psychological testing as valuable; (3) look for similar but not identical characteristics in juvenile and adult competence evaluations; and (4) consider opinions about maturity to be an important component of competence evaluations in juvenile court.