Research Issues in Adjudicative Competence

Abstract

Having established that the MacSAC-CD is a psychometrically sound and valid research instrument, we conducted additional analyses of the data from the main field study to explore three important research issues regarding the competence of criminal defendants. These issues are: (a) the relationships of diagnosis and psychiatric symptomatology to legal capacity, (b) the extent to which defendants’ capacities are consistent across different competence-related abilities and different legal domains (assisting counsel versus decisional competence), and (c) the degree to which impaired abilities in the adjudicative competence area are mirrored by impaired competence in the area of competence to make treatment decisions (i.e., to accept or refuse psychotropic medication). In this chapter we report the results of these additional analyses.