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GEORGIACOURTCOMPETENCE

TEST(GCCT)

The evaluation of competence to stand trial is by far the

most common forensic evaluation conducted. It has

been estimated that there are between 24,000 and

60,000 of these evaluations carried out across the

United States each year. This entry describes the

Georgia Court Competence Test (GCCT), an instru-

ment used to assess competence to stand trial. The

GCCT may best be used as a screening instrument at

institutions that process numerous defendants each day.

In this role, the GCCT can direct services to individu-

als who are showing clear signs that they may be

incompetent to stand trial at that time. For the assess-

ment of competence to stand trial during a criminal

proceeding, however, a much more comprehensive

evaluation is necessary.

In the landmark case of Dusky v. United States,the

U.S. Supreme Court (USSC) established the legal stan-

dard for competence to stand trial. The USSC stated

that “the test will be whether [the defendant] has suffi-

cient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a

reasonable degree of rational understanding, and

whether he has a rational as well as a factual under-

standing of the proceedings against him.” The court did

not define the procedure for determining competence,

and as a result, mental health professionals assess this

construct in a variety of ways, including the use of

forensic assessment instruments—for example, the

GCCT. The current version of the GCCT is a 21-item

interview that assesses a defendant’s knowledge of very

basic information related to competence to stand trial.

Although the test has been available for 27 years,

research on the measure is limited, and recently, it was

recommended that it be used only as a checklist to iden-

tify potential areas of concern.

In all evaluations of competence to stand trial, the

defendant is required to answer questions related to the

trial process. Defendants’ ability to communicate with

counsel, to understand their legal proceeding and their

role as a defendant, and to make relevant legal decisions

are areas that are investigated. Research conducted over

the past 20 years has demonstrated that these issues are

best evaluated when one or more standardized measures

of competence to stand trial are included in the evalua-

tive process. One such measure is the GCCT, created in

1980 by Robert W. Wildman and colleagues.

The initial version of the GCCT consisted of 17

items and was developed as a screening instrument that

would differentiate defendants who were clearly com-

petent from those who required further evaluation. The

instrument requires approximately 10 minutes to

administer and score and is conducted in an interview

format. The most recent version of the GCCT, known

as the Mississippi State Hospital Revision

(GCCT–MSH), consists of 21 questions that fall into

three broad domains: (1) knowledge of the courtroom

and legal proceedings, (2) knowledge of current

charges and associated penalties, and (3) relationship

with counsel. Like the original measures, the

GCCT–MSH is accompanied by a pictorial representa-

tion of the courtroom, on which the defendant is asked

to identify where courtroom personnel will sit during

the trial. The measure is scored out of 100 (raw score

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