The forensic psychologist also has a great deal to offer within the court system. One of the most common forensic psychological jobs is that of Competency Assessment. A competency assessment is carried out in order to assess an offenders ability to stand trial and to make legal decision on their own behalf. It is essential for an individual to receive a fair trial. If one has been determined to be mentally incompetent they may either be held until they reach competence and can be tried for their crimes or they will be tried but with important legal decisions being made by a lawyer on their behalf.
A second type of court based assessment is evaluation of the insanity defense. An insanity evaluation entails the assessment of and individuals mental state at the time of the offense, to determine whether they qualify as "not guilty by reason of insanity." Though very popular in mainstream media, usage of the insanity defense is rare. Success of the defense is even more uncommon.
Outside of the criminal realm a forensic psychologist may be asked to assess civil evaluations. These assessment include evaluations for a number of civil cases including disability or trauma within compensatory cases and assessments regarding child custody evaluations.
A final court related role of the forensic psychologist is that of the jury evaluation and trial consultant. A psychologist may be asked to evaluate potential jury members to determine, before the trial, which jurors are potentially prejudicial to the case. Additionally, some traits of the jury members personality may be assess to evaluate their capacity as a juror. Individuals with highly developed levels of moral reasoning tend to follow the letter of the law, while those with low levels of moral reasoning tend to make legal judgements based on irrelevant information such as the defendants race. Another trait often evaluated during a jury evaluation is the jurors level of authoritarianism. Individuals who are highly authoritarian, particularly teachers, tend to be extremely judgmental and are thereby poor jurors. Within the trial the Forensic psychologist may be asked to do a number of other tasks. Such as, make recommendations regarding trial strategy that will influence jurors (though there is obvious ethical concerns regarding the manipulation of jurors towards making legal decisions based on facts other then those that should be considered) and questioning and examination recommendations that may lead an individual on the stand to slip up in there testimony revealing the truth.
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