Using Third-Party Information in Forensic Mental-Health Assessment: A Critical Review

T he use of psychological and psychiatric evaluations for the courts has grown considerably in the last three decades.1 For the purposes of this article, we will refer to such an evaluation as a forensic mental-health assessment (FMHA). There are two important components to the definition of FMHA. First, such activity involves evaluations conducted in the context of criminal or civil proceedings.2 Second, it includes certain kinds of tasks—such as reconstructing a past mental state and linking it with the functional-legal capacities specified in a given legal test (such as insanity at the time of the offense) or evaluating a current mental state and appraising the extent to which it affects such functional legal capacities (such as those described in competence-to-stand trial evaluations).3 We begin by discussing FMHA in greater detail. This discussion includes broad foundational principles applicable to all such evaluations, as well as a brief description of 17 commonly evaluated types of FMHA. In this context, we then turn to the use of third-party information, or TPI (collateral interviews, records, and other documents or digital evidence), in FMHA. This discussion will address the importance, the value and limitations, and the current legal and professional status of TPI in forensic assessment

Using Third-Party Information in Forensic Mental-Health Assessment: A Critical Review

T he use of psychological and psychiatric evaluations for the courts has grown considerably in the last three decades.1 For the purposes of this article, we will refer to such an evaluation as a forensic mental-health assessment (FMHA). There are two important components to the definition of FMHA. First, such activity involves evaluations conducted in the context of criminal or civil proceedings.2 Second, it includes certain kinds of tasks—such as reconstructing a past mental state and linking it with the functional-legal capacities specified in a given legal test (such as insanity at the time of the offense) or evaluating a current mental state and appraising the extent to which it affects such functional legal capacities (such as those described in competence-to-stand trial evaluations).3 We begin by discussing FMHA in greater detail. This discussion includes broad foundational principles applicable to all such evaluations, as well as a brief description of 17 commonly evaluated types of FMHA. In this context, we then turn to the use of third-party information, or TPI (collateral interviews, records, and other documents or digital evidence), in FMHA. This discussion will address the importance, the value and limitations, and the current legal and professional status of TPI in forensic assessment

Risk Assessment for Future Offending: The Value and Limits of Expert Evidence at Sentencing

The question of a criminal defendant’s risk for future offending may be of interest to courts in a variety of contexts. Courts may request or consider information from forensic mental health professionals regarding risk assessment, which is the formal appraisal of the probability that an offender will reoffend or commit particular acts of violence in the future.1 Risk assessment is relevant in criminal contexts such as capital sentencing, criminal responsibility, and commitment of sexually violent predators; it also arises in civil contexts including civil commitment, workplace disability, child custody, and child protection.2 In some instances, risk assessment also may be done in cases involving risk of harm to identifiable third parties.3 Despite its growing use in the United States legal system in recent years, violence risk assessment has historically come under critical scrutiny in U.S. courts. Such concern about the practice of risk assessment and its evidentiary value is appropriate, considering the consequences that can be associated with a conclusion that an individual is high risk. Such consequences might include, inter alia, longer sentences or lost custody of a child.

Empathy, Acceptance of Responsibility, and Compelled Testimony in Juvenile Transfer Hearings: Legal Context and Empirical Evidence

There are a number of legal decisions in which the court must decide whether juveniles can be rehabilitated. Such decisions include juvenile adjudication/placement, waiver, and reverse waiver.1 The criterion used by courts to consider rehabilitation amenability is typically phrased in a way similar to that described under Pennsylvania state law.2 In deciding whether a child may be decertified (reverse waived from criminal to juvenile court), the court can consider. whether the child is amenable to treatment, supervision, or rehabilitation as a juvenile. The court may consider the following in determining treatment, supervision, or rehabilitation amenability: (a) age, (b) mental capacity, (c) maturity, (d) degree of criminal sophistication, (e) previous records, (f) nature and extent of any prior delinquent history, including the success or failure of any previous attempts by the juvenile court to rehabilitate, (g) whether the child can be rehabilitated prior to the expiration of the juvenile court jurisdiction, (h) probation or institutional reports, (i) any other relevant factors, and (j) whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that the child is not committable to an institution for the mentally retarded or mentally ill.3 Empathy for the victims of the defendant’s offenses, and acceptance of responsibility for such offenses, may be considered by mental health and justice professionals working with post-adjudicated youth. But rendering an expert opinion that describes the youth’s capacity for empathy or acceptance of responsibility, when that opinion is based in part on questions concerning the alleged offense, places the evaluating expert in an awkward position. To what extent can denial of culpability be used to infer limited empathy and acceptance of responsibility? How does the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination factor into this consideration

Disputed Paraphilia Diagnoses and Legal Decision Making: A Case Law Survey of Paraphilia NOS, Nonconsent

Paraphilia diagnoses applied in forensic settings are an ongoing subject of debate among psycholegal professionals and scholars. Disagreements pertain to both means-related issues having to do with issues of diagnostic reliability and validity, and ends-related issues regarding the consequences inherent to the legal contexts in which the diagnoses arise. To provide a fresh outlook on some of the issues, the present study entailed a systematic survey of U.S. case law to investigate the history, extent, and nature of forensic uses of a controversial paraphilia diagnosis, paraphilia not otherwise specified, nonconsent. Descriptive analyses revealed that use of the diagnosis, which occurred almost exclusively in adult sexually violent predator cases, increased substantially over the past decade, with cases in 3 states accounting for over 2/3 of the total observed prevalence rate. In the majority of cases examined in detail, the support that evaluators relied upon in making the diagnosis was either not clearly described or behaviorally inferential in nature, and the diagnosis was often accompanied by other mental and personality disorder diagnoses. An opposing expert was observed in more than half of the cases, approximately 1/3 of whom noted the debate surrounding the diagnosis and nearly 2/3 of whom opined that there was insufficient evidentiary support for the diagnosis in the case at bar. Finally, all courts that reached the issue of the admissibility of the diagnosis between 2008 and 2011 admitted it, and most courts also found it sufficient to support classifying an individual as a sexually violent predator

Intertidal percolation through beach sands as a source of 224,223 Ra to Long Island Sound, New York, and Connecticut, United States

Along tidal coasts, seawater circulated through the intertidal beach contributes to submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) and its associated geochemical signature. The short-lived radium isotopes, 223Ra (half-life = 11.4 d) and 224Ra (half-life = 3.66 d), were used to quantify this component of SGD in a large estuary, Long Island Sound (LIS), New York, United States. The tide is semidiurnal with a range of approximately 2 m. Concentrations in beach pore waters ranged from 97 to 678 disintegrations per minute (dpm) 224Ra 100 L–1, whereas concentrations in open coastal waters ranged from approximately 12 to 69 dpm 224Ra 100 L–1. A simple model based on ingrowth of 224Ra in the pore water of the beach sands was used to determine residence times of 0.6 to 2.5 d for water in the intertidal beach. Both 223Ra and 224Ra showed decreasing gradients and concentration in an offshore transect away from the beach face in Smithtown Bay, whereas the long-lived radium isotopes, 228Ra (half-life = 5.75 y) and 226Ra (half-life = 1,600 y), showed no significant gradients. Based on the 224Ra gradient, the flux across the LIS shoreline was estimated to be 1.79 × 108 dpm m–1 y–1. The 224Ra inventories in two zones, 0–50 m and 0–100 m offshore, were used to estimate total SGD fluxes of 3.1 × 1010 to 6.6 × 1010 m3 y–1 of intertidal seawater to the nearshore of LIS. Comparison of this estimate with hydrodynamic models of fresh groundwater flow in the adjacent coastal aquifer suggests that less than 1% of the SGD is freshwater

Radium mass balance sensitivity analysis for submarine groundwater discharge estimation in semi-enclosed basins: the case study of Long Island Sound

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Tamborski, J., Cochran, J. K., Bokuniewicz, H., Heilbrun, C., Garcia-Orellana, J., Rodellas, V., & Wilson, R. Radium mass balance sensitivity analysis for submarine groundwater discharge estimation in semi-enclosed basins: the case study of Long Island Sound. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 8, (2020): 108, doi:10.3389/fenvs.2020.00108.Estimation of submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) to semi-enclosed basins by Ra isotope mass balance is herein assessed. We evaluate 224Ra, 226Ra, and 228Ra distributions in surface and bottom waters of Long Island Sound (CT-NY, United States) collected during spring 2009 and summer 2010. Surface water and bottom water Ra activities display an apparent seasonality, with greater activities during the summer. Long-lived Ra isotope mass balances are highly sensitive to boundary fluxes (water flux and Ra activity). Variation (50%) in the 224Ra, 226Ra, and 228Ra offshore seawater activity results in a 63–74% change in the basin-wide 226Ra SGD flux and a 58–60% change in the 228Ra SGD flux, but only a 4–9% change in the 224Ra SGD flux. This highlights the need to accurately constrain long-lived Ra activities in the inflowing and outflowing water, as well as water fluxes across boundaries. Short-lived Ra isotope mass balances are sensitive to internal Ra fluxes, including desorption from resuspended particles and inputs from sediment diffusion and bioturbation. A 50% increase in the sediment diffusive flux of 224Ra, 226Ra, and 228Ra results in a ∼30% decrease in the 224Ra SGD flux, but only a ∼6–10% decrease in the 226Ra and 228Ra SGD flux. When boundary mixing is uncertain, 224Ra is the preferred tracer of SGD if sediment contributions are adequately constrained. When boundary mixing is well-constrained, 226Ra and 228Ra are the preferred tracers of SGD, as sediment contributions become less important. A three-dimensional numerical model is used to constrain boundary mixing in Long Island Sound (LIS), with mean SGD fluxes of 1.2 ± 0.9 × 1013 L y–1 during spring 2009 and 3.3 ± 0.7 × 1013 L y–1 during summer 2010. The SGD flux to LIS during summer 2010 was one order of magnitude greater than the freshwater inflow from the Connecticut River. The maximum marine SGD-driven N flux is 14 ± 11 × 108 mol N y–1 and rivals the N load of the Connecticut River.This project has been funded by New York Sea Grant projects (R/CCP-16 and R/CMC-12). This research is contributing to the ICTA-UAB Unit of Excellence “María de Maeztu” (MDM-2015-0552) and MERS (2017 SGR – 1588, Generalitat de Catalunya). VR acknowledges financial support from the Beatriu de Pinós postdoctoral program of the Catalan Government (2017-BP-00334)

Glacial controls on redox-sensitive trace element cycling in Arctic fjord sediments (Spitsbergen, Svalbard)

Glacial meltwater is an important source of bioessential trace elements to high latitude oceans. Upon delivery to coastal waters, glacially sourced particulate trace elements are processed during early diagenesis in sediments and may be sequestered or recycled back to the water column depending on local biogeochemical conditions. In the glaciated fjords of Svalbard, large amounts of reactive Fe and Mn (oxyhydr)oxides are delivered to the sediment by glacial discharge, resulting in pronounced Fe and Mn cycling concurrent with microbial sulfate reduction. In order to investigate the diagenetic cycling of selected trace elements (As, Co, Cu, Mo, Ni, and U) in this system, we collected sediment cores from two Svalbard fjords, Van Keulenfjorden and Van Mijenfjorden, in a transect along the head-to-mouth fjord axis and analyzed aqueous and solid phase geochemistry with respect to trace elements, sulfur, and carbon along with sulfate reduction rates. We found that Co and Ni associate with Fe and Mn (oxyhydr)oxides and enter the pore water upon reductive metal oxide dissolution. Copper is enriched in the solid phase where sulfate reduction rates are high, likely due to reactions with H2S and the formation of sulfide minerals. Uranium accumulates in the solid phase likely following reduction by both Fe- and sulfate-reducing bacteria, while Mo adsorbs to Fe and Mn (oxyhydr)oxides in the surface sediment and is removed from the pore water at depth where sulfidization makes it particle-reactive. Arsenic is tightly coupled to Fe redox cycling and its partitioning between solid and dissolved phases is influenced by competition with FeS for adsorption sites on crystalline Fe oxides. Differences in trace element cycling between the two fjords suggest delivery of varying amount and composition of tidewater glacier (Van Keulenfjorden) and meltwater stream (Van Mijenfjorden) material, likely related to oxidative processes occurring in meltwater streams. This processing produces a partially weathered, more reactive sediment that is subject to stronger redox cycling of Fe, Mn, S, and associated trace elements upon delivery to Van Mijenfjorden. With climate warming, the patterns of trace element cycling observed in Van Mijenfjorden may also become more prevalent in other Svalbard fjords as tidewater glaciers retreat into meltwater stream valleys