Legal Standards & Admissibility
This 1923 standard requires that scientific evidence be "generally accepted" within the relevant scientific community to be admissible.
Answer: What is the Frye Standard?
$100: This term refers to the voluntary physical act required as an element of a crime.
Answer: What is actus reus?
$100: This offender rehabilitation model matches treatment intensity to an offender’s risk level and targets "criminogenic" needs.
Answer: What is the Risk-Needs-Responsivity (RNR) model?
$100: This ethical violation occurs when a practitioner is in a professional role with a person while also being in a different role with them.
Answer: What is a Multiple Relationship?
$100: This professional handles federal crimes, works with investigative agencies, and conducts jury trials on behalf of the government.
Answer: Who is an Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA)?
200: Under this standard, the trial judge serves as the "gatekeeper" to ensure expert testimony is both relevant and reliable.
Answer: What is the Daubert Standard?
$200: This term refers to the "guilty mind" or the mental state and intent behind a crime.
Answer: What is mens rea?
$200: Neurobiological studies often show lower activity (hypoactivation) in this brain area among "impulsive" or "affective" offenders.
Answer: What is the prefrontal cortex?
$200: Forensic practitioners are ethically encouraged to avoid these types of fee arrangements where payment depends on the legal outcome.
Answer: What are contingent fees?
$200: In police investigations, this is a common (though controversial) method used for interrogation.
Answer: What is the Reid Technique?
$300: This standard defines competency to stand trial as the "here and now" ability to understand proceedings and assist counsel.
Answer: What is the Dusky Standard?
$300: While psychology is "nomothetic," the law is described as this, meaning it focuses on specific cases and individuals.
Answer: What is idiographic?
$300: This theory suggests prison violence occurs because inmates bring their outside violent attitudes and behaviors into the facility.
Answer: What is Importation Theory?
$300: Forensic practitioners are ethically encouraged to avoid these types of fee arrangements where payment depends on the legal outcome.
Answer: What are contingent fees?
$300: Forensic psychiatrists evaluate malpractice using these "Four Ds": Duty, Dereliction, Damage, and...
Answer: What is Direct Cause?
$400: This insanity defense rule focuses on whether a "defect of reason" prevented the defendant from knowing the nature of their act or that it was wrong.
Answer: What is the M’Naghten Rule?
$400: This legal principle emphasizes following past cases and established precedents.
Answer: What is stare decisis?
$400: Unlike impulsive violence, this type of violence is purposeful, goal-oriented, and characterized by low emotion.
Answer: What is predatory or instrumental violence?
$400: In their communications, forensic practitioners must clearly distinguish between these three things: observations, conclusions, and...
Answer: What are inferences?
$400: This stage of prosecution uses medical and psychological data to argue for reduced sentences or specialized treatment.
Answer: What is Mitigation?
$500: This landmark case established that psychologists are legitimate experts on mental illness in federal courts.
Answer: What is Jenkins v. United States?
$500: This "broad definition" of forensic psychology includes applying any of these three sub-disciplines of psychology to any legal matter.
Answer: What are social, developmental, or cognitive psychology?
$500: Factors that, when changed, are associated with lower rates of reoffending are known by this term in the RNR model.
Answer: What are criminogenic needs?
$500: This term describes the intentional production of false or exaggerated physical or psychological symptoms motivated by external gains.
Answer: What is malingering?
$500: In Oklahoma, offenders with this specific diagnosis are barred from using the NGRI defense and are instead found "guilty with mental defect."
Answer: What is Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)?