Clinical Evaluations for
Juveniles’ Competence to Stand Trial:

A Guide for Legal Professionals

Thomas Grisso, PhD, ABPP

About the Book:

In recent years, attorneys and judges increasingly have referred youths for clinical evaluations of their competence to stand trial, both in juvenile and criminal court. This book is the first guide to assist legal professionals in understanding how these evaluations can be performed by forensic mental health professionals so that they can provide legally relevant information for judicial decisions and offer a developmental psychological perspective that makes such evaluations different when performed with juveniles as opposed to adults. The guide's approach is consistent with nearly a decade of legal and psychological research on juveniles' capacities as trial defendants, conducted by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice. Brief sections describe the current state of laws pertaining to juveniles' competence to stand trial, a developmental perspective on the question, the specific methods that mental health professionals can employ when performing such evaluations with juveniles, and ways to use and challenge the results of their evaluations.

The guide's concepts and methods parallel a companion volume for forensic clinicians (Evaluating Juveniles' Adjudicative Competence: A Guide for Clinical Practice), in a way that offers the potential for a consensual, cross-disciplinary understanding of the legal, clinical, and developmental issues involved in the process of decision-making about juveniles' competence as trial defendants.

Table of Contents:

Thomas Grisso, PhD, ABPP, is Professor of Psychiatry, Director of Psychology, and Coordinator of the Law and Psychiatry Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The present work is a product of the collaborative efforts of the members of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice, for which Dr. Grisso Directed a research project on juveniles' adjudicative competence from 1998 to 2004. Dr. Grisso is Executive Director of the American Board of Forensic Psychology, and has authored a number of texts on forensic evaluations. His research and writing to support the quality of mental health professionals' evaluations for courts have been recognized by distinguished contribution awards from the American Psychological Association (1994, the American Board of Professional Psychology (2002), and most recently with the Isaac Ray Award from the American Psychiatric Association (2005).