Chapter 5 Flashcards
Circumstances surrounding a crime that heighten its seriousness for purposes of sentencing. An example would be an excessively heinous or cruel method of carrying out a crime, such as a torture murder.
Aggravating factors
The ability to participate in a variety of court proceedings. See also, incompetence to stand trial.
Adjudicative competence
Refers to a judicial process in which an offender faces a potential death sentence.
Capital sentencing
Legal standard achieved when the truth of the facts asserted is highly probable but does not reach the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Clear and convincing proof
Sentence completion examination intended to provide a quick assessment of a defendant’s competency to stand trial. The test taps the defendant’s knowledge about the role of the lawyer and the rudiments of the court process.
Competency screening test
Assessment usually designed to determine whether a defense of insanity can be supported. Also called “mental state at time of offense” evaluation
Criminal responsibility evaluation
Cautionary warning that the death penalty is an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finalty, and in its enormity. Consequently, all decisions in death penalty cases should be carefully weighed.
Death-is-different principle
In capital cases, attempts by the defense team to reduce or avoid the sentence of death for their client based on factors that lessen the offender’s culpability. Examples of mitigating factors are age and a long history of violent vitimization.
Death penalty mitigation
Assessment of both a defendant’s competency to stand trial and criminal responsibility during the same evaluation.
Dual-purpose evaluations
Refers to psychologists offering treatment to a patient who also form other relationships with the patient or evaluate them for other purposes, e.g., competency to stand trial. Such dual relationships are in violation of ethical codes and are forbidden.
Dual-relationship
Relates to juvenile and adult competency to stand trial and decision-making abilities. The rule holds that defendants must be able to understand and appreciate the criminal proceedings against them and be able to assist their attorneys in their defense.
Dusky standard
Conducted by psychologists and psychiatrists consulting with criminal courts. Comptency to stand trial assessments and criminal responsibility evaluations are prominent examples.
Forensic mental health assessments (FMHAs)
Short examination for initial screening for mental competency
Georgia court competency test (GCCT)
A verdict alternative in some states that allows defendants to be found guilty while seemingly affording them treatment for mental disorders.
Guilty but mentally ill
Historical/Clinical/ Management Risk Scale for evaluating risk in offenders and inmates.
HCR-20
In the legal context, this term describes a judicial determination that an individual’s degree or quantity of mental disorder relieves him or her of criminal responsibility for illegal actions.
Insanity
Procedure for committing a mentally disordered individual in need of treatment to a treatment facility
Involuntary civil commitment
Used by clinicians to evaluate competence to stand trial
Macarthur Competence Assessment Tool- Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT-CA)
Response style in which the individual consciously fabricates or grossly exaggerates his or her systems.
Malingering
Conditions which, while not completely exonerating a defendant, might at least reduce the punishment if he or she is convicted. An example would be evidence of a childhood marred by extensive physical or sexual abuse.
Mitigating factors
Proof that one side in a legal dispute has more evidence in its favor than the other. It is the standard required in most civil suits and may be relevant to criminal proceedings as well.
Preponderance of evidence
Drugs that exert their primary effect on the brain, thus altering mood or behavior
Psychoactive medication
In criminal law, the process by which a person who was found incompetent to stand trial is rendered competent, such as by medication or psychological treatment
Restoration to competency
Forensic examination designed to detect malingering
Rogers criminal responsibility assessment scales (R-CRAS)
