Dr. Douglas Mossman of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and College of Law, and colleagues, have published Quantifying the Accuracy of Forensic Examiners in the Absence of a “Gold Standard”, forthcoming in Law and Human Behavior. Here is the abstract:
“This study asked whether latent class modeling methods and multiple ratings of the same cases might permit quantification of the accuracy of forensic assessments. Five evaluators examined 156 redacted court reports concerning criminal defendants who had undergone hospitalization for evaluation or restoration of their adjudicative competence. Evaluators rated each defendant’s Dusky-defined competence to stand trial on a five-point scale as well as each defendant’s understanding of, appreciation of, and reasoning about criminal proceedings. Having multiple ratings per defendant made it possible to estimate accuracy parameters using maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches, despite the absence of any ‘gold standard’ for the defendants’ true competence status. Evaluators appeared to be very accurate, though this finding should be viewed with caution.”
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Tags: Criminal law information systems, Criminal procedure information systems, Empirical methods in legal informatics, Psychology and legal informatics, Psychology and law, Expert witnesses, Statistical methods in legal informatics, Competence to stand trial, Criminal defendants' competence to stand trial, Psychologists as expert witnesses, Psychologists' assessment of criminal defendants' competency to stand trial, Dusky v. United States, Measures of competence to stand trial, Measures of adjudicative competence, Standards of competence to stand trial, Standards of adjudicative competence, Metaanalysis in legal informatics, Law and Human Behavior
