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hands of the U.S. government. Culture affects pretrial investigation and litigation, resolution ofthe case, and guilt-innocence defenses as well as sentencing options. Finally, culture isinextricably linked to social history, and social history is the foundation of any competent,reliable assessment of an individual’s functioning and behavior, and is also a critical componentof assessing torture and its effects.Capital proceedings, by law and practice, require investigation, preparation, presentation, andconsideration of any fact that may shed light on the offender and the offense, the frailties ofhumankind, and the infinite array of human conditions that affect behavior and functioning.The consequences of torture and maltreatment affect each detainee differently and uniquely inaccordance with their own attribution of meaning, culture, and life history of experiences andperceptions. Defense counsel have a duty to investigate, learn, and appreciate the intimaterelationship between culture, torture, and culpability as a core organizing principle forrepresenting Guantanamo capital defendants. This paper presents the standard of care for bestpractices in investigating, developing, and presenting a culturally competent capital defense.Ethnopsychopharmacology and Culturally Competent Diagnosis: Applicationsin Criminal JusticeL. DiAnne Bradford, Morehouse School of Medicine (Dbradford@msm.edu;Dbradford@aol.com )With the advances in ethnopsychopharmacology (how people of different race/ethnicity mayrespond differently to drugs) and pharmacogenetics (determining the underlying genetic codingwhich may explain these differences), we have discovered that the benefits (efficacy) and safety(adverse events) ratio of drugs which were discovered and developed in Caucasians may differ inpeople of different race/ethnicity. Some of these differences in response to treatment ofpsychotropic drugs may be attributed to differences in genetic allele frequencies, or the samegenetic material impacted by further upstream genetic differences yet undiscovered. The clinicalimpact can be either an increase in adverse event burden or a decrease in the efficacy of certainpsychotropic drugs in people of Asian and African descent. These findings have a direct impacton court-ordered involuntary medication in order to restore competency, and should beconsidered in any treatment plan. An additional factor for consideration in the criminal justicesystem is the evidence that African Americans are being over-diagnosed as havingschizophrenia, while missing diagnoses of affective disorders such as bipolar disorder. This overdiagnosisof schizophrenia and under-diagnosis of bipolar disorders, among others, has beendocumented in out-patient clinics, inpatient hospitals and among prisoners incarcerated withinthe criminal justice system. Factors which play a role in this misdiagnosis include racial/ethnicdifferences in symptoms and clinician bias, i.e., using different decision rules in formingdiagnosis. Since a culturally competent diagnosis is the basis for treatment plans and mitigatingfactors, misdiagnosis of mental illnesses impacts criminal justice proceedings.263