Court-ordered Evaluations Research Articles

Qualität forensisch psychiatrischer und psychologischer Gutachten

The quality of court-ordered psychiatric and psychological evaluations has been the focus of substantial debate. The recent development of guidelines for writing expert reports, the improvement of forensic training opportunities for psychologists and psychiatrists and the implementation of a stricter regulation of mental health professionals admitted as experts in court have laid the groundwork for higher quality expert evaluations. Overall, the measures appear to yield a positive effect, although instances of questionable quality remain. The current review illustrates the potential for improvement and underlines the fact that all involved disciplines must act to ensure that only high-quality reports are used in court.

Functional Deficits in Juveniles Evaluated for Adjudicative Competence

Evaluations of juvenile adjudicative competence (AC) are frequently ordered, yet significant gaps remain in the field’s understanding of referred youth. Using a sample of 277 court-ordered evaluations of juvenile AC, this study provides further support for the relationship of age and intelligence with competence, but other factors remain inconsistent. In the current study, developmental immaturity was associated with competence. Youth showed highest rates of deficits in the functional capacities of rational appreciation, ability to assist counsel, and decision-making. Within factual understanding, the highest rates of deficits were seen for the understanding of charges, plea bargains, the trial purpose, and juvenile justice commitment. This study provides the first empirical estimate of the proportion of youth (9%–30%) who demonstrate factual, but not rational understanding, and highlights areas that may be underreported in reports to the court. Implications for evaluations and research are described, including a focus on mental health symptoms and rational appreciation.

Operationalizing the triarchic model of psychopathy in adolescents using the MMPI-A-RF (Restructured Form).

The triarchic model is an increasingly influential multidimensional model of psychopathy that focuses on three distinct phenotypic domains of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. Although originally operationalized through the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM), the triarchic model has also been operationalized through items of existing psychopathy and personality measures that provide sufficient content coverage of the triarchic dimensions. The current study aimed to provide a means for enhancing understanding of psychopathic features in adolescents through the development and validation of triarchic scales using items from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent-Restructured Form (MMPI-A-RF). The MMPI-A-RF normative sample and a large sample of juveniles undergoing court-ordered evaluations were used for formal scale development and the juvenile-court sample was also used for validation analyses. The MMPI-A-RF triarchic scales demonstrated adequate internal consistency in both the normative and juvenile offender samples, and were largely related to criterion variables, including measures of personality, psychopathology, interpersonal functioning, and adolescent concerns as predicted based on the triarchic model. Canonical correlation analyses revealed unexpected and novel findings of (variable-centered) patterns of associations between our predictor triarchic scales and criterion variables that resemble "primary" and "secondary" psychopathy variants or subtypes. Overall, findings suggest that the triarchic model as indexed by the MMPI-A-RF scales can be useful for understanding how psychopathy may manifest in youth and for identifying youth at risk for severe and persistent antisocial behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for Characteristics and Outcomes for Defendants Charged With Misdemeanors Referred for Court-Ordered Competency Evaluations

Supplemental Material for Characteristics and Outcomes for Defendants Charged With Misdemeanors Referred for Court-Ordered Competency Evaluations

Risk factors for rehospitalization for patients following release from court-ordered evaluation: A retrospective study

We have noticed an increase in the number of patients who go through the court-ordered evaluation (COE) process but are not placed on a court-ordered treatment, and who then return to the hospital on another COE petition within one year from their initial discharge. The aim of this study is to examine what factors might be involved in rehospitalization in this population of psychiatric patients. The records of 146 readmitted patients and 146 randomized patients not readmitted were compared for various risk factors. Data were analyzed using univariate and mutivariate procedures. All patients who had diagnoses of substance-induced mood or psychotic disorders were readmitted within one year. Other risk factors included younger age, seriously mentally ill (SMI) status, longer length of stay and having a psychotic or schizophrenia spectrum disorder. Substance-induced mood or psychotic disorder may play significant roles for patients who are rehospitalized within a year of initial COE.

Ecological Validity of the Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29): an Italian Study of Court-Ordered, Psychological Injury Evaluations Using the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS) as Criterion Variable

The Inventory of Problems-29 (IOP-29; Viglione, Giromini, & Landis, Journal of Personality Assessment, 99(5), 534–544, 2017) is a 29-item, recently published, self-administered test aimed at assessing the credibility of various symptom presentations. Although available research strongly supports the use of this symptom validity test in malingering-related contexts, to date, only few studies have analyzed data from real-life forensic evaluations. To fill this gap and explore ecological and convergent validity, the current study analyzed data from 74 court-ordered evaluations aimed at establishing the possible presence of psychological injury. Such evaluations are high-stakes situations in which exaggeration or malingering occur relatively often. We used a research-supported and popular symptom validity test, i.e., the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS; Smith & Burger, Journal of the American Academy on Psychiatry and Law, 25:180–183, 1997), as our criterion variable. The IOP-29 produced excellent area under the curve (AUC) values of .98 with a recommended SIMS total score cutoff (≥ 17) and .99 when eliminating too-close-to-classify cases (Rogers & Bender, 2018) and very large Cohen’s d effect sizes of 2.98 and 3.59, respectively. Crucially, when implementing established cut scores from previous research, the IOP-29 yielded very high specificity and sensitivity rates, and the predictions from the two tests were strikingly similar. Taken together, these findings support the strong convergent validity of the IOP-29 and its utility in applied clinical and forensic settings.

From victim to perpetrator to survivor: The psycho-social context of South African women offenders

BackgroundThere is a paucity of research on women offenders in the South African context, particularly those referred for forensic psychiatric observation. Little is known about their life histories, the nature of their offences or the psycho-social contexts that enable, or are antecedents to, women’s criminal offending.AimThis research study, the largest of its kind in South Africa, examined the psycho-social contexts within which women offenders referred for psychiatric evaluation come to commit offences. The profiles of both offenders and victims, as well as reasons for referral and forensic mental health outcomes, were investigated.MethodsA retrospective record review of 573 cases, spanning a 12-year review period, from 6 different forensic psychiatric units in South Africa, was conducted.ResultsThe findings describe a population of women offenders who come from backgrounds of socio-demographic and socio-economic adversity, with relatively high pre-offence incidences of being victims of abuse themselves, with significant levels of mental illness and alcohol abuse permeating life histories. The majority of index offences which led to court-ordered forensic evaluations were for violent offences against the person, with murder being the single most common index offence in the sample. Most victims of violence were known to the accused. There were also relatively high rates of psychotic and mood-spectrum disorders present, with relatively low rates of personality disorders. The majority of women were deemed to be trial competent and criminally responsible in relation to their index offences.ConclusionIt is recommended that more standardised and gender-sensitive forensic mental health assessment approaches, documentation and reporting be employed throughout the country. Future research should compare male and female offending patterns and forensic mental health profiles.

The extraordinary case of Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky: Psychopathology or contemporary art?

This article examines the psychiatric and political issues surrounding the case of the controversial Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky, who received a number of court-ordered psychiatric evaluations as part of the legal actions initiated subsequent to his political protest actions. The author presents the results of his own clinical investigation into Pavlensky's case, arguing that previous diagnoses made by psychiatrists were unwarranted and unreasonable. This case draws the attention of experts to a problem: the need for more accurate criteria for the differentiation of behavioral disorders from behavior understood locally as socially-deviant. This issue is especially relevant during the assessment of the mental health of persons engaged in socially transgressive behavior which is explicitly framed as aesthetic and political action.

A Comparison of Defendants with Mental Illness Represented by Public Defenders and Private Attorneys: an Analysis of Court-Ordered Pretrial Psychiatric Evaluations

This study compared the characteristics and court-ordered evaluation questions and responses among 4,430 defendants to determine if differences existed between those represented by public defenders and private attorneys when receiving trial competency or responsibility psychiatric evaluations from a state department of mental health. Defendants represented by public defenders were more likely to be younger, to have less education, to have psychotic disorders, to have a history of inpatient psychiatric treatment, to live in urban or rural counties, and to be jailed at the time of the evaluation. In addition, defendants represented by public defenders were less likely to have a request for a criminal responsibility evaluation and more likely to be evaluated as having a mental illness, to be incompetent to stand trial, and to need hospitalization pending trial. Consideration of whether defendants with public defenders receiving less requests for responsibility evaluations was indicative of a therapeutic jurisprudence approach is discussed. Implications for research on types of legal representation of defendants with mental illness are discussed.

Catching Liars: Why it can be so Hard

Considerable research reveals that most people, including mental health and law enforcement professionals, are remarkably poor at catching liars, doing no better than chance. Our comparative inability to detect deception poses a profound threat to the reliability of forensic psychological and psychiatric evaluations of criminal defendants intended to assess such things as current mental status and future dangerousness. In forensic evaluations, where one’s personal freedom, even life, can be at stake, some clients, perhaps more than some, will inevitably dissemble. This essay provides a brief and non-technical description of the research my students and we have conducted designed to better understand the reasons for which detecting deception is so difficult. In this regard, and consistent with much previous research, we discovered that in assessing the verbal content of other persons’ statements, it is possible with a good degree of reliability to differentiate between true and deceptive statements of criminal defendants. We also found that the “truth” is itself a multidimensional concept and that truthful versus false statements differ with regard to both the quantity and quality of information contained in a statement. While multiple challenges exist to accurately detect deception, our data strongly suggested that it may be so difficult to catch liars because it requires more cognitive work to identify false rather than true statements. Indeed, the data indicate that determining a statement is true appears to involve a one-step cognitive process while determining a statement is false appears to involve a two-step cognitive process, whereby a false statement is recognized as lacking attributes of truthfulness while simultaneously manifesting attributes of deception. That it would be more difficult to recognize falsehoods and require more cognitive work does not seem surprising considering that the identification of a lie forces us to look below and reject the surface meaning of a statement concluding that the statement is not simply inaccurate but actually intended to deceive or mislead us. On a more positive note, even though deception is ubiquitous in human relationships and a significant number of dangerous liars will be successful, the accuracy of deception detection can be improved by the application of the findings from verbal content analysis identifying those statement attributes characteristic of truthfulness versus deception. It would seem especially important for forensic psychologists and psychiatrists to be aware of research capable of assisting them in assessing the veracity of criminal defendants participating in court-ordered evaluations.

Elucidating the validity of the externalizing spectrum of psychopathology in correctional, forensic, and community samples.

Krueger and colleagues (2007) have elaborated on a hierarchical structural model of externalizing psychopathology, with a general overarching factor and 2 residual liability factors reflecting callous-aggression and substance misuse. The current study used an independent set of symptom and behavior indicators (items derived from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form) to test alternative models of externalizing. In mixed-sex samples of correctional inmates (n = 42,290), forensic criminal defendants (n = 1,065), and community participants (n = 2,214), a bifactor model based on Krueger, Markon, Patrick, Benning, and Kramer (2007) was associated with better model fit relative to a 1-factor model, 2-factor model, and a bifactor model with 2 random bifactors. Moreover, the Krueger et al. model was largely invariant across sex, race, and time. Finally, external validity analyses from the forensic sample revealed that the latent factors were associated with a range of forensically relevant outcomes. More specifically, those high on general externalizing were less likely to be deemed mentally ill, incompetent, or insane in court-ordered evaluations. Those high on the callous-aggression bifactor were more likely to have violent crime convictions. Those high on the residual substance misuse factor were more likely to be recommended for drug intervention in-lieu of conviction and be clinically diagnosed with drug dependence. In conclusion, the externalizing spectrum appears robust regardless of settings and indicators examined, and its domains are associated with theoretically expected outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record

ATTORNEYS' BELIEFS AND OPINIONS ABOUT CHILD CUSTODY EVALUATIONS

We surveyed a national sample of family law attorneys (N = 192) regarding their beliefs and opinions about child custody evaluations, particularly those performed by independent/private practitioners. Findings revealed participants' strongly preferred court-ordered evaluations performed by doctoral-level psychologists who assumed a neutral position. The participants expressed concern regarding procedures used by evaluators, the application of evaluation data to the Best Interests of the Child Standard, and certain report components. A clear majority supported evaluators making recommendations about custody and parenting time, but their satisfaction with these evaluations varied widely. Specific concerns and suggestions noted by the participants are highlighted; we conclude with recommendations.

The Influence of Time and Treatment on Recall of Mental State at the Time of Offense: Incompetent Defendants and Evaluation of Insanity

Evaluation of insanity is an inherently difficult task due to its retrospective nature and reliance on a defendant's recall of events. Eliciting a defendant's version of events early in the criminal justice process is advisable to guard against inaccurate or incomplete recall due to normal forgetting and changes in circumstance and mental status. However, depending on the jurisdiction of examination, postponing this inquiry may be necessary to protect a defendant's right against self-incrimination. Such circumstances often occur in the context of simultaneous court-ordered evaluations of competency to stand trial and insanity. A case example illustrates the influence of time and psychiatric treatment on a defendant's recollection of an alleged offense and provides a framework for discussion of the importance of protecting the rights of indigent defendants, even if potentially critical information is lost as a result.

When Are Defendants Too Ill to Represent Themselves?

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Legal NewsFull AccessWhen Are Defendants Too Ill to Represent Themselves?Mark MoranMark MoranSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:2 Jul 2010https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.45.13.psychnews_45_13_016AbstractThe competence of criminal defendants to represent themselves in a trial, rather than have an attorney represent them, is separate from competence to stand trial. That was the ruling in the 2008 United States Supreme Court case, Edwards v. Indiana.Thus competence to represent oneself could require a psychiatric evaluation separate from the evaluation of competence to stand trial.Debra Pinals, M.D., says that the 2008 Edwards v. Indiana case established a new type of mental competence for self-representation, but it is unknown to what extent psychiatrists will be called upon to assess that competence.Credit: David HathcoxBut in a presentation about that case during a symposium at the APA annual meeting in May, psychiatry and law expert Debra Pinals, M.D., said that a problem relating to that decision is that the Court did not spell out precise criteria for determining competence to represent oneself at trial.“The Court was willing to say that incompetence for self-representation required [the presence of] severe mental illness, but beyond that, [it] did not agree or put out any clear standard as to what the specific competence would entail,” Pinals said. “Justice Stephen Breyer [who wrote the majority opinion] stated that the judge at the trial-court level would be the one who would need to make the determination of competence for self-representation based, in a way, on fairness and dignity of the proceedings.”Pinals is director of forensic psychiatry education and an associate professor in the law and psychiatry program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She is also assistant commissioner of forensic services for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health.In 1999, Ahmad Edwards tried to steal a pair of shoes from a department store. When approached by a security guard, he drew a shotgun and fired at the guard and wounded a bystander. One of the charges against him was attempted murder.After three hearings to determine his competency to stand trial, Edwards was found at times to be incompetent and was sent to a hospital where he was restored to competence. Finally, six years after the original offense, he went to trial asking to represent himself. The judge in the case, citing Edwards' history of mental illness, denied the request and appointed counsel to represent him. Edwards was convicted on some of the charges.Edwards appealed the denial of the request to represent himself to a state appeals court, and after yet another denial, to the Indiana Supreme Court and finally to the U.S. Supreme Court.The U.S. Supreme Court held in its ruling in the Edwards case that states are not forbidden from appointing counsel to represent a defendant who is competent to stand trial but who suffers from mental illness that is severe enough to render him or her incompetent for self-representation.Pinals said that this ruling from the Supreme Court establishes a new type of trial-related competence. Not fully known, however, is the extent to which psychiatrists and mental health professionals will be tapped to do assessments of a defendant's competence for self-representation. “And without a clear standard or guideline, it is difficult to know how to carry out these assessments,” she said.“However, because the courts will need to look at the issue of whether a severe mental illness may compromise a defendant's ability to represent himself, it is likely that these assessments will require psychiatric or other mental health professional evaluation.“Psychiatrists have been asked in some cases to assess defendants' competence to proceed [without an attorney], and have done so with little guidance as to what the standard should be to define this competence,” Pinals said. “We recognize that the competence would likely involve things other than the requirements for competence to stand trial, possibly including assessing defendants' understanding of law and legal proceedings [and] their ability to sustain attention, strategize, and plan a defense.”She added that when a psychiatric evaluator is conducting a court-ordered evaluation of competence to stand trial, there is no automatic requirement to assess competence for self-representation as well. However, when defendants state in the context of an evaluation of competence to stand trial that they want to represent themselves, the evaluation might at that point include further exploration of the defendant's reasoning and could “provide the court with functional assessment data that a judge might consider in an analysis of competence to represent oneself,” Pinals said. ISSUES NewArchived

Drafting the parenting evaluation court order: A conceptual and practical approach

A court's order begins and directs the process of a court-appointed parenting evaluation. If the order is ill-defined, the evaluation, its conclusions, and the resulting expert opinion may be compromised. To draft a clear order, lawyers should understand the nature of a psychological evaluation, identify the legal bases and the authority in psychological literature and ethics for conducting a parenting evaluation, and establish the specific purposes for the court-ordered evaluation. Likewise, psychologists should understand these drafting issues to guard against role and ethical pitfalls in their court-appointed tasks. This paper will explore these issues. In addition, suggestions for drafting a motion petitioning the court for an evaluation are offered, and a model court order for parenting evaluations is presented.

Fathering by Partner-Abusive Men

A substantial body of research concludes that children in homes marked by intimate partner violence (IPV) and conflict are at increased risk for maladjustment. Although studies often attribute these difficulties to the aggressive acts witnessed, other research and theoretical work suggests that disrupted parenting and co-occurring child maltreatment play an equally critical role in the onset of the children's psychological and behavioral problems. Despite the clear importance of parenting in the context of IPV, relatively little scholarship has been devoted to the topic, particularly when it comes to examining fathers. The current study sought to better understand the paternal relationships of men arrested for spouse/partner abuse, to examine their beliefs about children's exposure to interparental conflict and to identify the specific factors that may place their children at risk for maltreatment. The data consisted of questionnaires administered to 3,824 men attending a court-ordered evaluation after they were convicted of assaulting an intimate partner. Analyses revealed that most of the men had some type of fathering role with underage children (n = 2,508; 65.6%) and in most cases these relationships continued following their arrest. Although the majority of the men acknowledged that their children had been exposed to interparental conflicts, few perceived that their children had been affected by the arguing. Also of concern was the fact that risk factors for child maltreatment were highly prevalent in this population. Implications of these findings and suggestions for those working with domestic offenders are discussed.

Practice Parameter for the Assessment and Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Substance Use Disorders

Practice Parameter for the Assessment and Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Substance Use Disorders

Screening for malingering in a criminal-forensic sample with the Personality Assessment Inventory.

In this study, the authors examined how overreporting of psychopathology indices on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; L. C. Morey, 1991) performed as screening measures for malingering in a sample of 166 defendants undergoing pretrial court-ordered evaluations in the federal criminal justice system. Using results from the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS; R. Rogers, R. M. Bagby, & S. E. Dickens, 1992) as the criterion measure of malingering, the authors found that the Negative Impression scale (NIM) was the most effective PAI screening measure (cut score > or = 81 T). NIM performed as well as an established comparison measure from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--2 (J. N. Butcher, W. G. Dahlstrom, J. R. Graham, A. Tellegen, & B. Kaemmer, 1989; Infrequency [F] cut score > or = 95 T), supporting the use of either of these indices as reasonable screening measures to identify potential malingerers for subsequent evaluation.

Experiences of Custody Evaluation: Perspectives of Young Adults Who Were the Subject of Family Court Proceedings as Children

ABSTRACT Court-ordered custody evaluations are conducted primarily to assist courts in making decisions regarding the best interests of children in the context of parental disputes over custody and access. They also represent the most common means through which children's wishes in relation to custody and access are presented as evidence. This article reports on a qualitative research study of young adults' recollections of participating in custody evaluations ordered by the Family Court of Australia. In-depth interviews were conducted with 18 young adults, aged 18 to 26. Two major areas of inquiry are addressed in this article: (1) participants' recollections of interviews conducted by social workers and psychologists for the purpose of custody evaluation, and (2) their suggestions for ways in which professionals working with children in this context might make the process easier for children. Taken together, their experiences point to some useful principles for practice in this field.

“I didn’t do it, but if I did I had a good reason”: Minimization, Denial, and Attributions of Blame Among Male and Female Domestic Violence Offenders

Women are increasingly being arrested and prosecuted for assaulting an intimate partner. Whereas extensive research has been conducted to identify the treatment needs of male domestic violence offenders, few studies have examined females convicted of the same charges. In the present study 1,267 men and 159 women convicted of intimate partner abuse were compared on scales assessing attributions of blame for their recent offense, minimization, denial, and socially desirable responding. Research with male offenders has identified these factors as important treatment targets, as they appear to influence an offender’s risk for noncompliance and recidivism. The results of the study suggest that both male and female domestic violence offenders engage in socially desirable responding during court-ordered evaluations, that both attribute greater blame for the recent offense to their spouse/partner than they acknowledge for themselves, and that significant numbers of both genders deny the recent incident and/or minimize the severity of the offense. Areas for further research are highlighted along with a discussion of the implications of these findings for practitioners.