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The assessment of competency for execution: An overview
Author(s) -
Heilbrun Kirk S.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.2370050403
Subject(s) - mental health , capital punishment , competency assessment , health professions , process (computing) , sentence , population , occupational safety and health , applied psychology , human factors and ergonomics , psychology , poison control , medical education , medicine , computer science , medical emergency , psychiatry , health care , political science , criminology , law , environmental health , pathology , artificial intelligence , operating system
Competency for execution is a legal competency that is an integral part of the capital punishment process in the United States. With the rapidly increasing population under death sentence, the issue of competency for execution is likely to be raised with increasing frequency in the coming years. This creates some compelling ethical issues for the mental health professions. The questions of whether mental health professionals should provide assessment of competency for execution and, if so, how the assessment should be performed, are issues of immediate urgency.