Sk. Hoge et al., MENTALLY-ILL AND NON-MENTALLY ILL DEFENDANTS ABILITIES TO UNDERSTAND INFORMATION RELEVANT TO ADJUDICATION - A PRELIMINARY-STUDY, Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 24(2), 1996, pp. 187-197
The legal construct of competence to stand trial, or ''adjudicative co
mpetence,'' is based on the premise that some mentally disordered defe
ndants have impaired abilities when compared with most defendants and
that adjudication should be barred if these competence-related abiliti
es are significantly impaired. Where the line is drawn between suffici
ent and insufficient abilities has important consequences: as a result
of being adjudicated incompetent, defendants may be detained and trea
ted involuntarily and their trials will be delayed. However, no studie
s have systematically compared the capacities of relevant groups of de
fendants. In this study, 84 criminal defendants-42 of whom were hospit
alized as incompetent and 42 of whom were regarded as unquestionably c
ompetent-were administered three instruments measuring capacity to und
erstand legally relevant information. Incompetent defendants performed
more poorly on all measures of understanding. Twenty-eight incompeten
t defendants were administered the measures a second time, after resto
ration to competence. Restored defendants improved their performance o
n all measures of understanding and their performance was similar to t
hat of normal, competent defendants.