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Miranda Rights Comprehension Instruments*
MRCI

Naomi E. S. Goldstein, PhD
Heather Zelle, JD
Thomas Grisso, PhD, ABPP

Order Code: MCIPAK
Price: $124.95
$109.95
Manual/Easel/10 Forms

Order Code: MCIB
Price: $40.00
Paperbound Manual only
192pp. 2012
ISBN10:1568871384
ISBN13: 9781568871387

Order Code: MCIE
Price: $64.95
Desktop easel only
70pp. 2012
ISBN10:1568871392
ISBN13: 9781568871394

Order Code: MCIF
Price: $20.00
Package of 10 Forms
2012
ISBN10:1568871406
ISBN13: 9781568871400

* Please note: This product is available for sale only to qualified professionals who have received at least a BA in psychology, psychiatry, counseling, social work, or a closely related field and relevant training in the use of assessment instruments or verification of appropriate licensure, certification, association membership, listing in the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology, ABPP recognition from the American Board of Professional Psychology, or other evidence of appropriate qualifications and training. If you have not already established your qualifications with Professional Resource Press, please print out and complete the Qualification Form.

Review:

"The Miranda Rights Comprehension Instruments (MRCI) represent a psychometrically sound and empirically based update and revision of Grisso's original Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights (1998). The authors, well-known experts in the field of juvenile forensic assessment, have brought their vast, cumulative knowledge, research skills, and experience to this update and revision, resulting in a finely tuned and incredibly detailed set of forensic assessment instruments that will enhance the practice of forensic evaluation of juveniles (and eventually adults when the new adult norms are introduced in 2013). This revision relies on the empirically sound selection of Miranda warnings currently used in jurisdictions across the United States, including the use of a fifth warning as well as simplified language that represents the typical reading level of these warnings. Extensive normative data have been included in this revision to provide current juvenile norms. One of the four instruments in this revised edition (CMV-II) allows the examiner to better understand the defendant's expressive and receptive language skills; it has been expanded in the MRCI to include more than twice as many relevant words. The easel format of the original version of these instruments has been retained, allowing for user-friendly administration, scoring, and item queries. The inclusion of a sample report as well as a detailed review of relevant case law (citing Miranda instruments and other research studies) makes the manual an invaluable reference tool for evaluators writing reports or preparing expert testimony. The MRCI represents a major contribution to the field of forensic evaluation."
-Patricia A. Zapf, PhD, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York

About These Instruments:

The Miranda Rights Comprehension Instruments (MRCI) are designed for use by forensic mental health practitioners who have been asked to evaluate defendants' capacities to have waived their Miranda rights during police interrogations. These instruments provide multimethod approaches to assessing a person's current understanding of the Miranda warnings and appreciation of the significance of the adversarial nature of interrogation, right to silence, and right to counsel. This can assist the examiner in making inferences about the person's abilities at the time of the interrogation.

In light of developments in law, research, and forensic assessment since the publication of the original Instruments, this update and revision was necessary. The Miranda warnings contained in the instruments have been simplified and a commonly administered fifth warning has been added so that the MRCI can be applied more generally across jurisdictions. The psychometric properties of the instruments have been refined using contemporary methods of statistical analysis and the normative data have been updated; norms based on 21st century samples of juvenile justice and community youth are included in this manual, and new adult norms will be available in 2013.

Based on the results of decades of research on the original instruments and two comprehensive research studies of the MRCI's reliability and validity, these standardized instruments:

offer a structured, competency-based testing approach that employs objective scoring criteria

permit the examiner to compare the performance of examinees to the performance of normative samples of juvenile justice and community-based youth

provide in the manual comprehensive descriptions of the instruments, their development, tables of norms, approaches to interpreting the instruments' scores, and discussions of the scientific, professional, and legal status of the instruments' admissibility in court as a basis for expert opinion

include a specially designed table top easel that provides all the stimuli and examiner prompts required for administration

include expanded forms for recording and scoring responses

NOTE: All of the MRCI materials (manual, easel, and forms) are different from those used in the original Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights. Juvenile and adult defendants can be evaluated using the same MRCI easel and forms. However, until the adult norms are available, it is anticipated that forensic mental health evaluators will continue to use the original instruments when evaluating adult defendants and will use the new MRCI when evaluating juvenile defendants.

Table of Contents - Manual:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I: OVERVIEW

Purpose of the Instruments
Benefits of the Instruments
Limits of the Instruments
The Need for Revised Instruments
Organization of the MRCI
Role of the MRCI in Evaluations
User Qualifications

PART II: DEVELOPMENT AND STANDARDIZATION

Development of the Original Instruments for Assessing
Understanding and Appreciation of
Miranda Rights
Development of the MRCI
Standardization of Instrument Use
Development of Norms

PART III: GENERAL TESTING CONSIDERATIONS

Basic Principles for Manual Use
Scoring Criteria and Recording Responses

PART IV: TEST ADMINISTRATION AND
SCORING BY INSTRUMENT

Comprehension of Miranda Rights-II (CMR-II)
Comprehension of Miranda Rights-Recognition-II (CMR-R-II)
Function of Rights in Interrogation (FRI)
Comprehension of Miranda Vocabulary-II (CMV-II)

PART V: STATISTICAL PROPERTIES

Reliability
Validity

PART VI: INTERPRETATION

Interpretation Considerations
Clinical Considerations and Interpretation
Suggestions for Addressing MRCI Performance in Forensic Reports

PART VII: LEGAL RELEVANCE OF THE MRCI

Scientific Basis for the Instruments
Peer Reviews and Publications
Knowledge of Error
Instruments' Acceptance in the Field

PART VIII: RELEVANT CASE LAW

Miranda and Other Federal Cases
Case Law Referencing the Miranda Instruments and Testimony Based
Upon the Instruments
Case Law Referencing the Miranda Research Studies (Grisso, 1980, 1981)

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A: Tables and Figures For Interpreting the MRCI

APPENDIX B: Description of the Original Study

APPENDIX C: Description of the Revised Instrument Study

APPENDIX D: Sample Report

APPENDIX E: Instrument Inquiries and Scoring Criteria

Comprehension of Miranda Rights-II (CMR-II)
Comprehension of Miranda Rights-Recognition-II (CMR-R-II)
Function of Rights in Interrogation (FRI)
Comprehension of Miranda Vocabulary-II (CMV-II)

About the Authors

Naomi E. S. Goldstein, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychology and a member of the core faculty of the JD-PhD Program in Law and Psychology at Drexel University. Dr. Goldstein specializes in juvenile forensic psychology, and conducts research on adolescents' capacities to make legal decisions. In addition to examining juveniles' comprehension of Miranda rights and their likelihood of offering true and false confessions to police, Dr. Goldstein's research team created the Miranda Rights Educational Curriculum and evaluated its effectiveness in teaching youth about legal rights and legal decision-making. In addition to authoring numerous articles and book chapters, she has served on the editorial boards of multiple forensic psychology journals; co-edited the book, Juvenile Delinquency; and co-authored the book, Evaluating Capacity to Waive Miranda Rights.

Heather Zelle, JD, is currently completing her clinical internship in psychology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Worcester State Hospital and will receive her doctorate from Drexel University in 2012. She holds a doctorate in jurisprudence from Villanova University School of Law. Her research interests include juveniles' and adults' comprehension of Miranda rights, judicial interpretation of legal capacities, and clinical forensic assessment in juvenile and adult cases. She has co-authored several publications including chapters in the Handbook of Psychology: Forensic Psychology (forthcoming) and Forensic Assessments in Criminal and Civil Law: A Handbook for Lawyers.

Thomas Grisso, PhD, ABPP, is a clinical psychologist who is currently Professor of Psychiatry, Director of Psychology, and Director of the Law and Psychiatry Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Author of numerous books and articles, his work for the past 30 years has focused on research to improve courts' decisions about juveniles and persons with mental disorders, and to enhance the quality of forensic and mental health evaluations for criminal, juvenile and civil justice systems. Associations that have recognized Dr. Grisso's research, teaching and consultation in law and psychology include the American Psychological Association with the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy (1995) and the American Psychiatric Association with the Isaac Ray Award (2005). He has also received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (1998) and an Honorary Fellow Award by the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK).

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