This study examines the relationship between depression, as measured by four indices, and jailed women defendants' adjudicative competence ("competency to stand trial"). Competence was assessed by the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT-CA) in three areas: understanding, reasoning, and appreciation. Depression was not significantly correlated with any competence m...

This paper considers the case where adequate negligence standards cannot be defined because actions of defendants before an accident are imperfectly observable. Negligence-based liability rules, which are often considered as the only efficient liability rule in the presence of multiple tortfeasors, are not feasible in this environment. We propose an insurance-based liability rule as a remedy: D...

It has been well established that a ‘‘plea discount’’ or ‘‘trial penalty’’ exists, such that defendants who plead guilty receive significant sentencing discounts relative to what they would receive if convicted at trial. Theorists argue that the exact value of this plea discount is determined by bargaining ‘‘in the shadow of a trial,’’ meaning that plea decision-making is premised on the percei...

Most U.S. states have enacted JSL reform, the move from a regime of joint and several liability (JSL) that allows plaintiffs to claim full recovery from any one of multiple defendants to one where defendants are held liable only for the harm they cause. Contrary to previous theoretical work, we show that JSL reform can increase precaution by judgment proof agent by giving "deep pockets" an ince...

This paper presents a behaviorologist' s analytical review of the improper treatment to which defendants might be subjected as they pass through the various levels of the criminal justice system. Examples extracted from actual cases are presented throughout the article.' It examines the contingencies that control those abuses, and describes the effects on the behavior of defendants and official...

The AAPL Practice Guideline for the Forensic Psychiatric Evaluation of Competence to Stand Trial provides a rich discussion of the legal standards and procedures for evaluating and determining a criminal defendant's trial competence and for restoring to competence defendants found to be incompetent. The document includes an up-to-date discussion of the applicable case law, examines ethics consi...

Research indicates that a sizable proportion of adolescent defendants have difficulty understanding and participating in legal proceedings against them, and may be incompetent to stand trial. To examine attorneys' experience in defending adolescents with competence-related difficulties, 214 juvenile attorneys were surveyed. Findings indicated that attorneys have doubts about the competence of a...