The Four-gate Referral Test
Four questions decide which pathway your matter takes. Run them in order. Most people answer gate one correctly and then guess at the rest.
Gate 1. Is there a signed court order?
Palm Beach County’s Forensic Psychology Services Office states the rule plainly: all referrals for evaluation must be accompanied by an appropriate order from the court directing the assessment. No order, no referral. That office works out of Room 5.1130 at the Main Judicial Complex in West Palm Beach, with satellite locations in North County, South County, and West County. It opens at 8:30 in the morning and closes at 5:00. If you have no order and no attorney yet, the county route does not exist for you today.
Gate 2. Is the question guardianship or capacity?
If it is, the county office refers you to the Clerk of the Circuit Court rather than performing the evaluation. Florida runs guardianship capacity through a three-member examining committee appointed by the court under Florida Statute 744.331, not through the county’s forensic psychology staff. That distinction is the single most consequential thing on this page for an older resident or an adult child acting for a parent.
Gate 3. Is the question present ability or past mental state?
Competency to proceed asks whether a person can understand the proceedings and assist counsel right now. Criminal responsibility asks about mental state at the moment of the offense. They are different evaluations, drawing on different data, and answering the wrong one wastes a filing deadline. A capacity evaluation under Chapter 744 asks a third thing again, which is whether the person can exercise specific enumerated rights.
Gate 4. Is the evaluator the court’s or a party’s?
A court-appointed evaluator answers to the court and files with the court. A retained expert works for the party who engaged them, and the engagement carries different discovery consequences. Both are legitimate. They are not interchangeable, and an attorney who conflates them in a motion will hear about it.
Bring your answers to these four questions to any consultation. They tell an evaluator in about ninety seconds whether they can even accept your matter.
What A Florida Capacity Evaluation Has To Address
Florida does not let an examining committee return a general opinion that someone is incapacitated. Statute 744.3215 breaks capacity into specific rights, and the committee has to address them individually.
Six rights may be removed from a person by an order determining incapacity, but cannot be handed to a guardian. Under 744.3215(2), those are the right to marry, to vote, to personally apply for government benefits, to have a driver license, to travel, and to seek or retain employment. A separate group of rights may be removed and delegated to a guardian, including contracting, managing property, deciding where to live, and consenting to medical treatment. The right to marry carries an extra condition: if the right to contract has been removed, marriage requires court approval.
Fifteen rights survive an incapacity determination no matter what. Statute 744.3215(1) lists them, and they include the right to be restored to capacity at the earliest possible time, the right to have continuing review of the need for restricting rights, the right to have a preference about place and standard of living honored where reasonable, the right of access to the courts, the right to counsel, the right to receive visitors and communicate with others, and the right to privacy.
Each of the three committee members has to examine the person and file a report. Statute 744.331 requires that report to state a diagnosis, prognosis, and recommended treatment where applicable, evaluate the person’s ability to retain each of those enumerated rights, give the results of the examination, describe any capacity deficits along with their extent and the factual basis for the finding, name everyone present during the examination, and carry the member’s signature with the date and time of the examination.
The deadline is fifteen days from appointment. Each member files within that window. The committee must include one psychiatrist or physician, and at least one member has to have knowledge of the type of incapacity alleged. That last requirement is why a neuropsychologist matters in a case built on cognitive decline rather than psychiatric illness. Fees are set by the court and paid by the guardian from the ward’s property, or by the state if the person is indigent.
Competency Asks About Today, Not About The Day Of The Offense
Competency to proceed is a present-tense question. Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.211(a)(2) tells the examining expert exactly what to consider: whether the defendant appreciates the charges, appreciates the range and nature of possible penalties, understands the adversarial nature of the legal process, can disclose pertinent facts to counsel, can behave appropriately in court, and can testify relevantly. The expert may add any other factor they consider relevant. Six named factors, then professional judgment.
Sanity, or criminal responsibility, asks something different. It looks backward at mental state at the time of the offense. People conflate the two constantly, including people who should know better.
One consequence of a competency finding rarely appears on service pages. Under Florida Statute 916.145, charges against a defendant found incompetent due to mental illness are dismissed without prejudice after five continuous, uninterrupted years of incompetence, unless the court documents reasons to believe competence may return within a foreseeable period. A court may dismiss after three years if the offense is not one of the twenty-one categories the statute excepts, which include murder, manslaughter, robbery, kidnapping, arson, sexual battery, offenses involving firearms or destructive devices, and cases where an identifiable victim has not consented to dismissal.
Florida has applied the Daubert standard since May 2019. Statute 90.702 requires expert testimony to rest on sufficient facts, to use reliable principles and methods, and to apply those methods reliably to the facts of the case. Every report we write is built to be examined against that standard rather than defended after the fact.
The Evaluations We Perform
Forensic psychological evaluations across criminal, family, civil, and educational law. Competency to proceed for adults and juveniles, competency to waive Miranda rights, criminal responsibility, violence risk assessment, sexual behavior risk assessment for adults and juveniles, involuntary commitment, mitigation including downward departure and diminished capacity, and case consultation.
Forensic neuropsychological evaluation is a separate service line. Dr. Lauren Miller is a clinical and forensic neuropsychologist with nearly 20 years of experience as a clinician, consultant, lecturer, and writer. Where the legal question turns on cognition rather than psychiatric diagnosis, that is the assessment that answers it.
Personal and emotional injury evaluations for plaintiff and defense attorneys, covering traumatic brain injury, motor vehicle accidents, medical negligence, and rollover and catastrophic injuries. Dr. Colet’s experience here is first-hand, from a Level 1 Trauma Center, and it includes assessment of malingering and deception.
Also available: clinical psychological evaluations, psychoeducational testing for children and teens, attachment and bonding assessments, immigration psychological evaluations including hardship and asylum matters, and pre-employment psychological evaluations for police officers, firefighters, corrections officers, and probation officers.
The Forensic Psychologists at FC PsychExperts
Dr. Cathy Colet
Forensic PsychologistDr. Cathy Colet is a Licensed Clinical and Forensic Psychologist and founder of Forensic and Clinical PsychExperts, LLC.
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Dr. Lauren Miller
Clinical and Forensic NeuropsychologistDr. Miller has nearly 20 years of experience as a clinician, consultant, lecturer, and writer.
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Dr. Matthew J. Jalazo
Forensic PsychologistDr. Matthew J. Jalazo is a licensed psychologist who has practiced forensic psychology on a full-time basis for the last fifteen years.
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Dr. Christopher J. Beltran
Forensic PsychologistDr. Beltran is a Licensed Forensic Psychologist with over twenty-five years of experience in criminal and family law
Read MoreGetting here from South Palm Beach
Our office is at 210 Jupiter Lakes Blvd, Unit 4-201, Jupiter, FL 33458, about 25 miles up the coast. We also have a Fort Lauderdale office at 1451 W. Cypress Creek Road, Suite 300. Phone 561-870-0411. We open at 7:30 in the morning, Monday through Friday, and close at 4:30. That is an hour before the county’s forensic psychology office opens, which matters more than it sounds like when a filing is due.
For court-ordered work, the two venues closest to South Palm Beach are the Main Judicial Complex in West Palm Beach, roughly nine miles north, and the South County Courthouse in Delray Beach, roughly nine miles south. They are close to equidistant. Confirm which one your order names before you drive.
Questions Attorneys And Clients Ask
Is there a forensic psychologist in South Palm Beach?
No. No forensic psychologist maintains a practice inside the town’s one tenth of a square mile. The nearest specialty practitioners are in Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Greenacres, and Jupiter. For court-ordered evaluations, Palm Beach County’s Forensic Psychology Services Office works from the Main Judicial Complex in West Palm Beach with satellite locations in North, South, and West County.
Can I choose my own evaluator, or does the court pick?
It depends on the pathway. When a judge orders an evaluation and appoints the evaluator, the court chooses and you do not. When a party retains an expert, that party chooses. In family matters some parents raise concerns about how often the same evaluators and guardians are appointed in the same circuit. If that worries you in your case, the question belongs to your attorney, who can address evaluator selection at the appointment stage. Raising it after a report is filed is much harder.
What is the difference between the county office and a private forensic psychologist?
The county’s Forensic Psychology Services Office performs court-ordered evaluations only, and it requires an order from the court before it will schedule anything. It handles juvenile threat and delinquency matters, competency, intellectual disability evaluations, mental status at the offense, risk assessment, and domestic violence risk in family cases. Guardianship it refers to the Clerk of the Circuit Court. A private practice can be retained by a party, can accept court appointment, and can take a matter where no order exists yet.
Does the county office handle guardianship capacity evaluations?
No. It refers guardianship matters to the Clerk of the Circuit Court. Florida handles guardianship capacity through a three-member examining committee that the court appoints under Statute 744.331, with each member filing a report within fifteen days of appointment.
How long does an examining committee report take?
Florida sets the deadline by statute. Each of the three committee members files a report with the clerk within fifteen days after appointment. For evaluations outside Chapter 744, turnaround depends on the referral question, the records involved, and the court’s own schedule, so ask for a date in writing at the point of engagement.
Will insurance cover a forensic evaluation?
A forensic evaluation answers a legal question for a court. It is not treatment, and it does not produce a treatment plan, which is why it sits outside the way therapy is normally billed. Ask us directly about your matter rather than assuming either way.
Do you testify?
Yes. Dr. Colet is court-qualified in Florida’s 1st, 15th, 17th, 19th, and 20th Judicial Circuits. Lock testimony logistics into the engagement early, because deposition and trial availability is the constraint that most often breaks a schedule late in a case.