Critical psychological jurisprudence draws attention to the forces of ideology, power and violence embedded in the narratives of law and psychiatry, criminal justice and mental health. Application work in this area identifies how and for whom justice is served (or denied) by prevailing medicolegal decisions and practices. One method of discursive analysis comes from deconstruction. Indeed, as Derrida has proclaimed, ‘deconstruction is justice.’ To further this perspective, the author deconstructs psychological jurisprudence by examining the competency to stand trial (CST) phenomenon in the United States. To facilitate this investigation the precedent case law on the subject is presented and reviewed. In addition, selected principles from Derridean deconstruction are recounted and then applied to the medicolegal narrative of competency to stand trial. Given these observations, the author concludes by tentatively exploring the meaning(s) of deconstruction as justice in the domain of psychological jurisprudence.
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