Court-Ordered Evaluations From a Mental Health Court

Mental health courts (MHCs) have been in existence for more than 20 years, but little is known about the demographics, clinical features, and court outcomes of MHC defendants court-ordered for competence to stand trial (CST) evaluations. We examined these items in defendants who underwent CST evaluations for the Marion County, IN, MHC. The MHC defendants were significantly more likely than defendants referred from other courts to be male, black, unemployed, and on disability, and have a history of prior arrests and psychiatric treatment. MHC defendants found incompetent to stand trial (ICST) were significantly more likely to have a psychotic disorder and a high school education than MHC defendants found CST, and they were significantly less likely to have a mood disorder, to be on psychiatric medication, or to cooperate in forensic interviews. Evaluator concordance of primary diagnoses was linked to concordance of CST opinion. There were no significant differences in the outcome of charges between CST and ICST MHC defendants. This study highlights several important findings. First, evaluator concordance of diagnoses is linked to evaluator concordance of opinion. Second, the Marion County MHC functioned in a non-adversarial manner by not discriminating against defendants who were found ICST at the time of final judgment.