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The Presence of Low IQ and Mental Retardation Among Murder Defendants Referred for Pretrial Evaluation *
Author(s) -
Dwyer R. Gregg,
Frierson Richard L.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of forensic sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.715
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1556-4029
pISSN - 0022-1198
DOI - 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2006.00115.x
Subject(s) - poison control , psychology , occupational safety and health , injury prevention , suicide prevention , human factors and ergonomics , medical emergency , psychiatry , criminology , medicine , pathology
After an overview of definitions of mental retardation and recent case law regarding mental retardation and the death penalty, this paper presents a study of factors associated with a mental retardation (MR) diagnosis among murder defendants. Subjects with a full‐scale IQ≤70 ( n =42) were compared with other pretrial murder defendants ( n =228) referred for forensic evaluation over a 5‐year period. Subjects with an IQ≤70 who were diagnosed with MR were compared with subjects with an IQ≤70 who did not receive this diagnosis. Female murder defendants were more likely to receive a diagnosis of MR ( p =0.03). MR was also more commonly diagnosed in subjects with an Axis I cognitive disorder ( p =0.018). Having an IQ≤70 was more common in subjects with a psychotic and substance use disorder ( p =0.03) and did not necessarily lead to a diagnosis of MR in this subgroup. Implications for diagnosing MR among murder defendants are discussed.