Development of the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Criminal Adjudication (The MacCAT-CA)

Abstract

The research described in Chapter 3 established that the MacSAC-CD was a reliably-scored, valid measure of criminal defendants’ ability to participate in the legal process, that was also grounded in a legal theory of competence. The MacSAC-CD, however, was judged not appropriate for clinical-forensic use for a number of reasons. Some of the items lacked face validity for the legal setting, preliminary findings indicated that some of the MacSAC-CD measures yielded redundant information (e.g., paraphrase and recognition measures of understanding), and administration time for the MacSAC-CD ranged from 1.5 to 2.0 hours (which was significantly longer than the time required to administer any of the existing competence assessment instruments). This argued for development of a briefer competence assessment instrument.