Donald N. Bersoff (1939-2024).

This article memorializes Donald N. Bersoff (1939-2024), who provided a foundational influence on the development of American law-psychology and served as the 2013 president of the American Psychological Association (APA). Don had a long and meaningful career as a psychologist and a lawyer.

Collateral Consequences for Third-Party Interviewees in Forensic Contexts.

Collateral interviews can be an integral source of third-party information used in a range of forensic mental health assessments. Although family members and spouses often have the most knowledge about the evaluee, research suggests that they may also experience distress related to the legal proceedings. This article discusses the nature and purpose of collateral interviewing with close collateral contacts, comparing collateral interviews with direct interviews with evaluees.

Appraising Jackson-based unrestorability to competence to stand trial: The demonstration model.

Under United States law, criminal prosecution may not proceed against a defendant who is incompetent to participate in this process. The vast majority of defendants who are adjudicated incompetent to stand trial (IST) will subsequently regain sufficient capacities to be adjudicated competent to stand trial (CST). However, a small subgroup of defendants do not show sufficient improvement in clinical functioning and functional-legal capacities to regain CST.

What's risk got to do with it: Judges' and probation officers' understanding and use of juvenile risk assessments in making residential placement decisions.

Objective: This hypothetical vignette-based experiment was designed to better understand judges' and probation officers' interpretations and use of juvenile risk assessment tools in their decision-making around restrictive sanctions and confinement of youths on the basis of the youths' risk level and race.

Hypotheses: We expected that estimates of the probability of juvenile recidivism would significantly mediate the relationship between a categorical risk descriptor and decisions regarding the ordering confinement of youths. We also hypothesized that youths' race would serve as a significant moderator in the model.

Psychological Testing in Forensic Contexts Conducted Remotely.

The use of videoconferencing technology to conduct forensic psychiatric and forensic psychological evaluations remotely has grown considerably in the last decade. This commentary addresses a number of points made by Recupero regarding the use of remote technology to conduct forensic psychiatric evaluations. These points include the research supporting telepsychiatry and its generalizability to forensic assessment, the error rate associated with remote forensic assessment, and its general acceptance in the field.