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Trauma in Competency to Stand Trial Evaluations

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Assessing Trauma in Forensic Contexts

Abstract

The competency to stand trial evaluation has long been identified as the most important inquiry in the area of criminal mental health (American Bar Association, Judicial Administration Division, in Standards Relating to Appellate Courts, Vol. 3, 1994; Perlin, Behav Sci Law 21:297–310, 2003; Stone, 1975) as it is part of the bedrock of the commitment to the right to a fair trial. Certainly, it is the most frequently ordered and performed criminal evaluation with an estimated 90,000 (Fuller et al., Emptying the ‘new asylums’: A beds capacity model to reduce mental illness behind bars. Arlington, VA: Treatment Advocacy Center, 2017. http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/storage/documents/emptying-new-asylums.pdf) up from the oft-cited 60,000 per year in the United States in 2000 (Bonnie and Grisso, Adjudicative competence and youthful offenders. In T. Grisso and R. Schwartz (Eds.), Youth on trial: A developmental perspective on juvenile justice (pp. 73–103). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000). This chapter provides an overview of competency to proceed to trial evaluations (CST) and examines how assessing trauma during these evaluations is an important, if often overlooked, area, which could impact competency decisions and thus fair resolutions (typically not at trial) of criminal cases. While psychotic symptoms are the most often-cited issues related to impairments in CST, trauma symptoms have also been found to play a role. Case examples are included to illustrate some ways that the presence of trauma symptoms informed competency to stand trial evaluations and their outcomes. Trauma symptoms are only now coming to be recognized as possibly important factors in competency to proceed evaluations, as they include alterations in attention, concentration, interpersonal relationships, and, at times, reality testing. All too often, competency evaluators focus solely on the presence or absence of psychotic symptoms. Trauma symptoms can be quite similar to those seen in psychosis, specifically dissociation, disruptive thought and emotional processes, and hallucination-like flashbacks but may not be queried if prominent psychotic symptoms are not present. While it is true that psychotic symptoms are the primary reason defendants are found not competent, to overlook the role trauma may play on an individual’s functioning is a disservice to the defendant, the forensic evaluator, the courts, and ultimately, the criminal justice system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Teachers College/Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Elizabeth A. Owen

  2. Lander College for Men/Touro University System, New York, NY, USA

    Alan Perry

  3. Doctoral Candidate School Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Newark and Camden, NJ, USA

    Devora Panish Scher

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  1. Elizabeth A. Owen
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  2. Alan Perry
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  3. Devora Panish Scher
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Correspondence to Elizabeth A. Owen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology, St. John’s University, Queens, NY, USA

    Rafael Art. Javier

  2. Columbia University/Teachers College, New York, NY, USA

    Elizabeth A. Owen

  3. Lamb & Maddux, LLC, Hackensack, NJ, USA

    Jemour A. Maddux

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Owen, E.A., Perry, A., Scher, D.P. (2020). Trauma in Competency to Stand Trial Evaluations. In: Javier, R., Owen, E., Maddux, J. (eds) Assessing Trauma in Forensic Contexts. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33106-1_3

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