Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

might exist which would make the punishment unjust

or unlawful, or lacks the ability to convey such infor-

mation to the court. (p. 290)

Assessment of

Competency for Execution

Competency for execution, more than any other area

within the field of forensic assessment, has been

fraught with controversy and debate regarding whether,

and to what extent, mental health professionals should

become involved in this type of evaluation. Indeed,

the personal outcome for the inmate who serves as the

evaluee in this type of evaluation weighs heavily in

this debate.

Standards for competency for execution evalua-

tions should parallel those that apply to other types of

forensic evaluations. That is, the standardized proce-

dures that are used during the evaluation should be

described to the subject of the evaluation as well as in

the examiner’s report, assessment measures should be

relevant to the referral issue(s), and the examiner

should have a sound and sophisticated conceptualiza-

tion of the relevant criteria for being not competent for

execution. In addition, the knowledge base of examin-

ers should cover three domains: general legal compe-

tencies, forensic assessment methodologies, and

execution-related substantive content. Finally, collat-

eral information should be gathered. This might

include (but would not be limited to) information

regarding life history, psychological history and disor-

ders, deterioration-related data, previous and current

written reports, and interviews with persons who have

had extensive opportunities to observe the evaluee.

Detailed information on conducting evaluations

of competency for execution is beyond the scope of

this entry, but the interested reader is referred to the

references suggested below for further information

on this topic.

Given the low base rate of incompetence for execu-

tion, there is less opportunity to conduct this type of

evaluation and, therefore, even less opportunity to con-

duct research using a sample of inmates found incom-

petent to be executed or even referred for evaluations of

competency for execution. As a result, the literature and

commentary in this area are less well developed than

they are with respect to other types of competencies

(such as competency to stand trial). As was the case in

the context of assessing competency to stand trial, the

first assessment instruments to assist evaluators in the

evaluation of competency for execution have taken the

form of checklists of items that serve to structure the

evaluation. While the first checklists for evaluating

competency to stand trial were developed in the mid-

1960s, the first checklists for evaluating competency

for execution have only recently been developed. The

interested reader is referred to the checklists developed

by Kimberley Ackerson, Bruce Ebert, and Patricia Zapf

(all cited below).

Treatment for

Restoration to Competency

Given the amount of debate and controversy surround-

ing the role of mental health professionals in the

assessment of competency for execution, it is obvious

that even more controversy surrounds the role of the

mental health professional in the treatment of those

inmates found incompetent, for the purpose of restor-

ing their competence to be executed. This is a complex

issue about which commentators have written on both

sides. Some believe that it is never permissible to pro-

vide treatment for the purpose of restoring an individ-

ual to competence when the result is execution,

whereas others have indicated that this may be permis-

sible if the incompetent inmate had expressed a desire

to be restored to competence at an earlier time when

the inmate was competent. In addition, others have

provided further commentary regarding the situation

where an inmate has indicated a preference for death

by electing to undergo treatment to restore competence

for the purpose of execution, calling into question the

rationality of that individual. What complicates mat-

ters further is that some professional bodies, such as

the American Medical Association, have put forth

statements indicating that providing such treatment is

considered ethically unacceptable, thus putting physi-

cians and psychiatrists who work for the prison and

correctional systems, and who are expected to treat

incompetent inmates for the purpose of restoring them

to competence, in the difficult situation of having to

reconcile how to perform the duties required by their

employers while upholding the ethical requirements of

their profession. Obviously, there is no easy answer.

Research on

Competency for Execution

There has been a dearth of empirical research on com-

petency to be executed. Part of the explanation for this

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