An Investigation of the ECST-R as a Measure of Competence and Feigning

Abstract

Competency to stand trial is the most commonly raised psycholegal issue. Evaluations of a defendant's competency must be as accurate and complete as possible, and clinicians must be careful to screen for feigned incompetence. The Evaluation of Competency to Stand Trial-Revised (ECST-R), a recently developed co-mpetency assessment instrument, assesses the constructs of both competence and feigning. The present study provides further validation research on the ECST-R by comparing the performance of honest responders and coached feigners. Results support the discriminant validity of the ESCT-R and homogeneity of individual scales. This study supports use of the competency scales and provides some support for the use of the feigning scales, although some caution is advised.

KEYWORDS:

• competency to stand trial
• ECST-R
• feigning mental illness
• validity

This research was generously supported by a grant from the Forensic Psychology Research Institute at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The results were presented at the annual conference of the American Psychology-Law Society in Jacksonville, FL in March 2008.

Notes

¹Question 12 is separated into parts A and B that are scored independently, with A contributing to the FAC scale and B contributing to the RAC scale, so technically there are 19 scored items.

² List is available upon request from the authors