MacCAT-CA™

The MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool - Criminal Adjudication

Purpose: Evaluate a defendant's capacity to proceed to adjudication

Format: Paper and pencil

Age range: 18 years to 80 years

Time: 25-55 minutes

DETAILS:

The MacCAT-CA is a 22-item structured interview for the pretrial assessment of adjudicative competence.

Features and Benefits

• Uses a vignette format and objectively scored questions to standardize the measurement of three competence-related abilities: understanding, reasoning, and appreciation.

• The eight understanding and eight reasoning items are based on a brief vignette that describes a hypothetical crime; the 16 items query about prosecution of the hypothetical defendant. This approach was designed to introduce legal issues in a way that distances the defendant from the specifics of his or her own case.

• The six appreciation items query defendants about their attitudes and beliefs concerning the legal process as it surrounds their own cases.

• Norms are based on the scores of 729 defendants; score ranges for three levels of impairment (none or minimal, mild, and clinically significant) are provided for each measured ability.

• Validated with three groups of criminal defendants with varying competence levels and mental illness treatment histories.