The court held that " Due process does not require Kansas to adopt an insanity test that turns on a defendant’s ability to recognize that his crime was morally wrong." You can read the decision here.

"The publication of new findings on the United States (US) public’s views on mental illness by Pescosolido, Manago and Monahan (2019) is a punch in the gut to those of us who make the reduction of mental illness-related stigma our life’s work.  Findings indicate that, between 1996 and 2018, endorsement of the expectation that a hypothetical person meeting criteria for schizophrenia is likely to be dangerous has not decreased but increased, such that now nearly 70% of US residents expect the person to be dangerous.  Parallel to this change has been an increase in support for the use of coercive methods such as involuntary hospitalization, even for a vignette of an individual with non-clinical “daily troubles.”

See the full article post here.

​Abstract: Standardized test administration is key to a test’s validity, but is sometimes thwarted in correctional environments when policy or staff require that examinees wear restraints. Restraints such as handcuffs may impact participants’ state anxiety, stress, frustration, and profile validity, thereby confounding “state” and “trait” anxiety and construct validity. Participants in this study will be randomized to handcuffed or unhandcuffed conditions and administered the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI). State anxiety will be measured subjectively via the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and objectively using heart rate variability (HRV). I hypothesize that individuals who are handcuffed while completing the PAI will report higher subjective state anxiety and show decreased HRV (an objective indicator of higher state anxiety) than individuals who are not handcuffed while completing the measure. In addition, I expect to find that handcuffed individuals will produce more invalid PAI protocols than unhandcuffed individuals due to elevated INF, INC, and NIM scale scores and significantly higher PAI scores associated with anxiety, stress, and irritability. PAI scores will be partially explained by handcuff/unhandcuffed conditions and subjective and objective measures of state anxiety in regression analyses. Findings will inform “real world” forensic practice, when standardized test administration is not always the norm.  

Article by Ben Meyers posted here. 

Investigators: Hunter, Hovater, LaDuke, & Kois: ​

Objective: Credibility research shows adults often find children more believable than adults. We examined whether these findings translate to neuropsychological contexts, specifically as related to performance validity. This topic is underexplored in the neuropsychology literature (MacAllister et al., 2009). We anticipated that neuropsychologists would more likely find pediatric examinees effortful relative to adults.
 
Participants and Method: Participants were NAN and AACN listserv members who completed the study via Qualtrics. Participants were randomized to vignette conditions describing either a pediatric (age 9) or adult (age 23) assessment scenario. Vignettes were otherwise identical and indicated the examinee performed below recommended cut-offs on the TOMM and VSVT Hard Items.
 
Participants indicated whether the examinee’s performance was invalid, valid, or that they were unsure, as well as their level of confidence (slightly, moderately, very, or extremely). A composite outcome variable was constructed by multiplying participants' perceived performance validity by their level of confidence.
 
Results: An initial 94 participants began the study. A final sample of N = 44 were included in analyses after excluding due to failed manipulation checks, incomplete surveys, and not reporting at least slight familiarity with both pediatric and adult validity literatures. Participants were approximately 45 years old on average, 71% women, and 98% White. The majority (66%) held a PhD and have been practicing for approximately 15 years.
 
An independent sample t-test indicated a significant difference between conditions on validity/confidence composite scores, t(42) = 2.05, p = .047, Cohen's d = 0.65. Participants were significantly more likely to find the pediatric examinee’s performance valid and were more confident in their opinions relative to the adult examinee. This was a medium-to-large effect size.
 
Conclusions: This novel yet concerning finding suggests that neuropsychological standards of care can vary according to examinee age. Results remind neuropsychologists of the importance of objective normative data and stress the need for continued research in this area. 

The Supreme Court of the United States heard Kahler v. Kansas, a case particularly relevant to CLASS, on 10/07/2019. At issue is whether defendants' due process rights are violated when they do not have the option of posing a traditional insanity defense. The American Psychological Association, along with the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, filed an amicus brief supporting Kahler's position. It is critical to remember, as noted in the brief, that the insanity defense is not "used and abused." Indeed, we know that very few defendants attempt an insanity defense, and Kois & Chauhan (2018), in their meta-analysis, found that approximately 13% of defendants who pose the defense are found not criminally responsible. You can hear the SCOTUS oral arguments here, the transcript here, and a re-cap here. The case is pending.