Resources
A forensic psychiatric evaluation answers a specific legal question — competency, criminal responsibility, disability, risk — not a general diagnostic one. The evaluation begins after a conflict check and a signed retention agreement. Records review, examination, and a written report follow, with deposition and testimony as the matter requires. If you are weighing whether a case has a psychiatric dimension worth evaluating, that is what the initial inquiry call is for.
Dr. Penumetcha presents continuing legal education programs to bar associations and attorney organizations. Current topics are listed below. To discuss a presentation for your organization, use the inquiry form.
What happens between a finding of incompetency and a return to court. Built from years of direct clinical work inside the competency-restoration process — what restores, what doesn't, and what a well-supported restoration opinion looks like.
Inquire about this presentation →How a mental-state-at-the-time-of-offense opinion is constructed, where its limits are, and how to examine one critically. For both prosecution and defense audiences.
Inquire about this presentation →How much evidentiary weight a one-hour consultative examination deserves against a longitudinal treatment record. Based on his published analysis of this question.
Inquire about this presentation →Featured Articles
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 2018;46(3):373.
The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law's practice resource on competency evaluation — how the evaluation is structured, what it examines, and the reasoning behind a competency opinion. A useful orientation for attorneys who want to understand what a well-constructed evaluation looks like from the inside.
Read at JAAPL →Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 2014;42(4 Suppl):S3.
The Academy's practice guideline for insanity-defense evaluations — how an evaluator reconstructs mental state at the time of the offense and reasons from the record to an opinion. Background for the criminal responsibility work described under Areas of Practice.
Read at JAAPL →Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 2018;46(1 Suppl):S2.
The Academy's practice resource on psychiatric disability evaluation — the distinction between diagnosis and functional impairment, and how an evaluation connects one to the other against the applicable standard.
Read at JAAPL →Selected peer-reviewed articles, professional reports, and book chapters.
Competency to stand trial asks whether a defendant has a rational and factual understanding of the proceedings and the capacity to consult with counsel — the standard set out in Dusky v. United States. It's tied to the specific deficits at issue in a given case, not a general judgment about whether someone has a mental illness, and it addresses restorability where the legal question calls for it.
Competency evaluations aren't limited to trial competency. Related capacity questions include competency to waive Miranda rights, confession voluntariness, testamentary capacity (capacity to make a valid will), and contractual capacity.
The process begins with a conflict check, which requires the names of the parties and counsel involved on both sides. Once that's clear, a signed retention agreement is in place before any evaluation work begins.
No. A forensic evaluation is not treatment, and it does not create a physician-patient relationship. It answers a specific legal or administrative question for the retaining party or the court — it is not a course of care, and it doesn't substitute for one.
Because no physician-patient relationship is formed, a forensic evaluation doesn't work like a treatment record. What's discoverable or protected depends on how the evaluation was ordered and by whom — that's worth discussing case by case rather than assuming either way.
Yes — deposition and trial testimony are part of the forensic work, as the matter requires. The practice is Oregon-based and evaluates matters within Oregon.
No. The findings reflect the evaluation itself, not the retaining party's position. That independence is what makes the opinion useful to the court in the first place.
Submit the inquiry form. Scope and retention are settled on a scheduling call after the conflict check clears.
It depends on the evaluation type, but collateral records and prior documentation are usually central — particularly for evaluations that reconstruct a person's state at an earlier point in time, where direct examination alone can't answer the question.
Yes. Attorneys may retain him for record review and an assessment of whether psychiatric issues are likely relevant to a matter, without requiring a full evaluation.