LIMPIADA, ANGELINE M.

Legal Research
JD 1-4
Auberry, A. (1985). PTSD Effective Representation of a Vietnam Veteran in the Criminal Justice System.
Marquette Law Review, 68(4) 647-675.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was first officially recognized as a distinct disorder by the
American Psychiatric Association in 1980. Since its recognition, PTSD has been diagnosed in an estimated
500,000 to 1.5 million veterans. Research provides that there is a direct correlation between developing
PTSD and participation in heavy combat. Researchers also have found that 25% of the soldiers who
participated in and survived heavy combat have since been charged with a criminal offense. It would,
therefore, appear that there is a correlation between PTSD and criminal activity among Vietnam veterans.
Currently, there are anywhere from 49,000 to 125,000 Vietnam veterans incarcerated in this nation's
prisons and jails. Despite the large number of victims suffering from PTSD in this country; the established
correlation between developing PTSD and the increased incidence of criminal arrests; and the large
number of incarcerated Vietnam veterans, only 200 attempts have been made by attorneys to use PTSD
as a criminal defense at trial.
Berger, O., McNiel, D., & Binder, R. (2012). PTSD as a Criminal Defense: Review of Case Law. Journal of
the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online December 2012, 40 (4) 509-521.
Expert testimony regarding PTSD meets criteria for admissibility in court. It meets what is known
as the Daubert test of admissibility decided in the 1993 U.S. Supreme Court case of Daubert v. Merrell
Dow Pharmaceuticals [7]. Following the court’s decision in that case, diagnosis is admissible if it is
provided by an expert, i.e., one who uses reliable criteria to make the diagnosis, and if there is support
for the diagnosis in the literature and general acceptance of the diagnosis in the field.
PTSD has been the basis for successful insanity defenses since 1979. Berger and his colleagues concluded
from the small number of jury trials reviewed that PTSD has been a successful insanity defense at trial,
particularly and perhaps only, when the phenomenon of dissociation has been involved.
Friel, A. (2010). Posttraumatic stress disorder and criminal responsibility. The Journal of Forensic
Psychiatry &Psychology, 19(1), 64-85.
There has been an increased interest in the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) and violence, and in the factors that mediate their linkage. PTSD is a common, often
underdiagnosed, condition with high levels of psychiatric comorbidity. It often has poor outcomes, with
many cases becoming chronic, leading to substantial costs both to the individual and society as a whole.
In this paper we report on the literature on PTSD, its diagnosis, assessment, and treatment. The difficulties
encountered when assessing PTSD – the subjective nature of the symptoms, the risk of malingering, and
the possibility of secondary gain – have been highlighted. Assessment and treatment in forensic settings
is further complicated by the possibility of perpetrator PTSD. We have reviewed the prevalence of PTSD
with particular reference to offender and forensic populations. The association between PTSD and
violence, its relevance across the spectrum of criminal responsibility, and relevant case law are explored.
Slovenko, R. (2004). The watering down of PTSD in criminal law. Journal of Psychiatry & Law, 32(3), 411-
437.
PTSD (or a subset of trauma-induced disorders) can be used in a criminal trial for various purposes:
(a) as a defense to prove insanity or some type of diminished capacity; (b) as a mitigating factor in plea
bargaining or sentencing; or (c) to ask for a new trial based on the right to effective assistance of counsel
if the defendant's attorney failed to raise PTSD to establish insanity or as a mitigating factor. In all events,
there has been a watering down of the concept of PTSD.
Zepenic, V. (2017) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Courtroom: Insanity Defense. American Journal of
Applied Psychology, 6(2), 22-30.
Since the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has been recognized as an independent mental
disorder [1] this disorder became leading disorder present in the courtroom. The definition of the
psychological trauma and stressor-related disorders have had many changes in order to clarify diagnostic
criterion of the disorder related to the exposure to traumatic or stressful event. However, as psychological
distress following exposure to the traumatic event or stressful event is quite variable and, for the past
more than three decades, the clinicians tried to establish the most reliable assessment and treatment
techniques
for PTSD. At the same time, the law faces its own dilemma about this disorder in particular when serious
clinical case is charged for the offence. To both the medicine and the law it is clear that many individuals
who have been exposed to the traumatic or stressful event exhibit a phenotype in which the most
prominent clinical characteristics are anhedonic and dysphoric symptoms, externalizing anger and rage,
dissociative symptoms, and relationship changes [2]. Subsequently, PTSD made its way into the courtroom
as the outcomes of criminal defenses for both violent and non-violent crime.