Conclusions and Opinions
Thus the instruments alone currently do not provide empirical grounds for an examiner’s conclusion that “the defendant cannot meet the demands of his future trial.” FAIs in this area may contribute to this type of conclusion in some cases, as standardized and reliable methods for describing defendants’ legally relevant abilities. But the conclusion itself would require other sources of data, especially about the nature of the pending trial, that would allow one to compare the defendant’s degree of ability or disability to the anticipated trial demands and to comment on the implications of the incongruencies in this comparison.
Even when conclusions about incongruencies can be reached, nothing about FAIs justifies an examiner’s testimony that the discrepancy between the defendant’s abilities and the anticipated trial demands renders the defendant competent or incompetent to stand trial. As explained earlier in the chapter, that is a moral and legal judgment. The instruments provide no basis for going any further than the descriptive, explanatory, and comparative testimony previously described.
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© 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.
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(2005). Competence to Stand Trial. In: Evaluating Competencies. Perspectives in Law & Psychology, vol 16. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47922-2_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47922-2_4
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