Fitness for Duty Evaluations have become more common for public safety positions.  Courts throughout the United States have ruled that due to the level of trust and power given law enforcement officers, law enforcement agencies have a responsibility to ensure that...

Civil competency is an area that gets significantly less attention than competency in criminal proceedings.  It’s definitely not a topic that you are going to see on Law & Order anytime soon. We regularly get questions about civil competency and the mental...

The term “diminished capacity” occasionally comes up in the world of forensic psychology.   It doesn’t get as much attention as not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI), but it’s still an important psycho-legal construct that forensic psychologists can evaluate for....

The terms insanity and competency are two legal terms that come up often in the criminal justice system. Most people get the two terms mixed up and don’t know the differences between them. We’ve already talked about Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) and...

What does it mean when a defendant pleads, Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI)?  You’ve probably heard the term “insanity” thrown around but most people don’t know the legal criteria for an NGRI plea. "Insanity” is a legal term rather than a medical or mental...

If you’ve watched enough Law and Order, you’ve probably heard the term “Incompetent to Stand Trial (IST)” or competency to stand trial. We get a lot of questions from attorneys asking us if their clients are competent to stand trial. The rules and laws surrounding...