Drs. Cox, Kois, & Brodsky have a new paper, Direct Observation of Defendant-Attorney Interactions in Assessing Abilities to Assist, in press with Professional Psychology: Research and Practice.

Abstract: According to the United States Supreme Court ruling in Dusky v. United States
(1960), to be competent to proceed, criminal defendants must factually and rationally
understand the charges against them and be able to assist and consult in their own
defense. Our focus is on possible impaired ability to assist and consult. Although a
substantial portion of psycholegal research has been dedicated to validly and reliably
assessing a criminal defendant’s competency, one area that has been largely unexplored
is observation of attorney-defendant interactions. External validity of this observation is
arguably more valuable than clinical interviewing and standardized testing, alone or in
conjunction. We propose that direct observation is a meaningful approach to assessing
ability to assist and consult counsel. In addition, we offer suggestions for clinical
practice, discuss potential limitations, and present recommendations for future research.