Clinician variation in findings of competence to stand trial.

Are some forensic evaluators more likely than others to find criminal defendants incompetent to stand trial (IST)? Although studies report aggregate IST rates of around 20% across large samples of criminal defendants, these aggregate rates tell us little about the patterns of findings among individual evaluators. This study uses 2 statewide samples to present the first available data addressing how individual clinicians vary in rates of IST opinions. Across 60 clinicians who conducted a combined total of more than 7,000 evaluations, the rates of IST findings varied considerably (range: 0% to 62%). Results suggested that some of the variability across evaluators may be attributable to the evaluator's discipline and how the evaluator considered the relationship between competence and psychosis. However, these findings raise questions about the many other evaluator, system, and policy-level characteristics that may influence evaluator variability. Thus, we suggest a research agenda that may better identify explanations for some of the variability in IST findings across evaluators. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)