This study identified characteristics of defendants, who are mentally retarded, which are related to competence to proceed to trial. The archival data of 271 subjects, the vast majority of the admission group of the State of Florida's Mentally Retarded Defendant Program, during a 15 and one half year period, were utilized. Subjects had been admitted to the program as incompetent to proceed to trial on felony charges. / The relationship of 13 variables and evaluations of competence to proceed to trial at 6, 12, 24 months and at final evaluation following admission to the mentally retarded defendant program was examined. Discriminant analysis and univariate post hoc Chi-square analyses revealed that six variables are significantly associated with evaluations of competence: (1) level of adaptive behavior deficits, (2) IQ score, (3) diagnosis of mental illness, (4) type of residence at arrest, (5) highest grade completed, and (6) employment experience. / The relationship between evaluations of competence to proceed to trial by program psychologists and court determinations of competence was also examined. Univariate Chi-square analysis revealed a very strong relationship between psychologists evaluations and court determinations at 6, 12, 24 months and at the final evaluation. Overall agreement was 96%. / A step-wise analysis revealed that only adaptive behavior, IQ, and mental illness made significant independent contributions to the discrimination between groups. A predictive model, based on the unstandardized coefficients associated with these three variables, correctly classified 85.4% of competent subjects. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-08, Section: B, page: 3565. / Major Professor: Harmon D. Burck. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77222 |
| Contributors | Jones, Barton L., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 163 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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