My husband doesn’t follow horse activities and has not the slightest knowledge about the situation. I simply went out to the kitchen and asked him about the term. He just laughed and said no one he knew would use it and labeled it “Hollywood talk”
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Thank you!
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A Yankee Duchess? It’s really neither here nor there, but there has recently been great controversy in Florin about a yankee woman who purports to be a Duchess (though I didn’t think the Americans bestowed such titles on their aristocracy). Florin’s new resident yank has lost no time purchasing Rugen’s old Pit of Despair and applying for a permit to resume its operation, and needless to say this has gone over like a shrieking eel in church with the townspeople. Rumor has it that she has been trying to catch Humperdinck’s eye in a scheme to upgrade her royal title. Perhaps she’ll be successful (birds of a feather and all)… I’m sure it’s merely a coincidence and not the same yankee duchess that seems to have made herself persona non grata around here.
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Wow I just came across this:
PTSD as a Criminal Defense: A Review of Case Law
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online December 2012, 40 (4) 509-521;
Very interesting reading considering this is published research from 2012.
There is so much for me to unpack from this paper but check out PTSD and the Unconsciousness Defense.
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Thanks for sharing that!
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I do not know anything about MB outside of reading the court records, listening to a hearing and COTH posts. So please accept this information as just that. Information about PTSD and law case in the US
PTSD has been offered as the basis for defenses, including insanity, unconsciousness, self-defense, and diminished capacity and as a mitigating circumstance in sentencing. The diagnosis has received both positive and negative treatment by appellate courts when presented as the basis for each of these defenses. An analysis of the reviewed cases yielded the following conclusions.
Appellate courts in some jurisdictions have found testimony on PTSD to meet both the Daubert and Frye standards for admissibility. In assessing expert testimony, courts have favorably regarded the direct evaluation of the defendant by the expert, confirmation of the traumatic exposure via collateral information, and the existence of documented PTSD symptomatology and treatment before the occurrence of the criminal act in question.
Appellate courts have found criminal defenses based on PTSD to be viable and compelling when a clear and direct connection between the defendant’s PTSD symptoms and the criminal incident was found by the expert. The PTSD phenomena that appellate courts have found to be most relevant to criminal defenses include dissociations, hyperarousal symptoms, hypervigilance symptoms, and the overestimation of danger. Although other PTSD phenomena, such as survivor guilt, a sense of a foreshortened future, and thrill seeking, have been proposed in the literature and in expert testimony as relevant, the case law reviewed in this article suggests that courts have not agreed.3,4,8
In the rare instances of crimes committed in the context of dissociative episodes, the exculpating defenses of insanity and unconsciousness have been successfully presented. In such cases, the mental health expert has been called on to determine whether the defendant was indeed in the midst of a PTSD dissociation while committing the offense. PTSD dissociations have been the basis for successfully presented arguments of self-defense, diminished capacity, and other mens rea defenses. These defenses have also been successfully based on the PTSD phenomena of overascertainment of danger and hyperarousal symptoms. Finally, for crimes in which PTSD played a role but did not amount to one of these defenses, some courts have found it to be a mitigating circumstance in sentencing.
Several authors have offered recommendations for the forensic expert evaluating PTSD as a potential criminal defense, although these have largely not been research based. For example, in describing two cases of malingered PTSD offered as a basis for criminal defense, Sparr and Atkinson3 discussed the importance of assessing the veracity of the trauma that is presented as reason for the diagnosis. Recommendations included the use of confirmatory records and being alert to signs of an exaggerated or factitious trauma, such as grandiose stories, esoteric terminology that is difficult to understand, or contradictory stories. Colbach64 proposed similar recommendations in a paper describing a case of malingered PTSD that was successfully used as a basis for an insanity defense but that was later exposed in a civil suit. In reviewing PTSD as a criminal defense, Sparr4 proposed characteristics of authentic PTSD dissociations that cause criminal acts. These included the absence of a motive or explanation for the crime, lack of premeditation, similarities between the circumstances of the crime and the trauma causing PTSD, a random or fortuitous victim, and no criminal history. Sparr and Atkinson3,4 and others8 have also proposed certain interview techniques in the evaluation of PTSD as a criminal defense, such as beginning with open-ended questions before inquiring about specific PTSD symptoms. The utility of neuropsychological tests in diagnosing PTSD has also been discussed and reviewed by others. Finally, although not yet an aspect of clinical or forensic practices, physiological testing, reviewed elsewhere,8 has been studied as a potentially useful adjunctive tool to aid in the diagnosis of PTSD.
Analysis of the cases reviewed in this article supports some of the above recommendations. First, accurately diagnosing PTSD is fundamental for the acceptance of expert testimony as reliable by courts. Second, forensic experts should specifically determine whether and how specific PTSD phenomena played a role in the criminal act in question. Particular attention should be directed to whether PTSD phenomena that have been recognized by courts as relevant to criminal defenses were present. The forensic expert should elucidate as clearly as possible how the PTSD phenomena that were present contributed to the act. In doing so, the forensic expert should keep in mind the relevant criminal defenses involved, including insanity, self-defense, and diminished capacity. In numerous cases reviewed in this article, expert testimony has been excluded or deemed irrelevant because of a failure to identify a clear and direct connection between the defendant’s PTSD symptoms and the criminal act.
This review has several limitations. First, it is limited to U.S. case law, which is likely to be only partially relevant in other countries. However, as has been suggested by Friel et al. ,8 the prevalence of PTSD-based criminal defenses in U.S. courts has very likely been higher than in other countries as a result of the Vietnam War. Because of that, U.S. case law in this area is likely to serve as an important reference point for other jurisdictions. Second, and as discussed earlier, because this review is based on published cases, it cannot address trends in PTSD-based criminal defenses in jury trials. Furthermore, the published decisions examined often contained only short exerpts or brief synopses of expert testimony, such that the complete examination of expert testimonies offered was not possible. Finally, this review describes the extent to which appellate courts have found PTSD and specific phenomena of the disorder to be valid bases for criminal defenses. These findings may differ from those in future empirical research, regarding the validity of PTSD phenomena and their role in criminal behavior.
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Thank you for researching and posting this! It will certainly be interesting to see how the three experts agree or disagree with each other. Competing experts are always confusing and sometimes end up being a popularity contest based on their personalities and presentations.
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Not really. I was on a jury, It never struck me to consider the volume of witnesses, just their credibility.
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Today the witness lists are to be presented along with a decision on previous 3rd party messages. I wonder if we will hear any news on either item? Courtroom Equipment testing will also be performed today.
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Thank you for the reminder about today’s hearing. Do you know what time it will be?
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Can one of you smart people explain that part to me (or better said, confirm the whole legal thing that is being talked about)?
Both sides have to tell the other side exactly who they are calling as a witness? Is it just a list of names? I assume it does not include any details on why that person is being called as a witness? Is there an ability to call other people as a witness, that were not on this list, if during the trail something comes up that some other person might be a good witness for?
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If I recall correctly it is this afternoon but may not be streamed since they will be testing equipment for the most part.
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Witness lists are always exchanged so the respective attorneys can plan rebuttal. “Surprise” witnesses can be called for extenuating circumstances. Generally the judge can grant a short delay in that testimony so the opposing side can prepare.
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In my experience, not NJ, you get the list of witnesses and generally what they will be testifying about. That is so you can interview/depose them or go through your notes on their interview/deposition to know what you’ll ask and what you expect them to say. It’s not like a big secret is going to be dropped in the courtroom a la Perry Mason.
The witness list may also be argued about by the two parties, because sometimes witnesses are just redundant, even though you, as the proponent, would like to hammer home that point from many different sources, each witness ideally needs to have something to add, in light of time constraints.
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I’d like to revisit the role of the police department. Those of us close to LEO’s know there were serious mistakes made from the beginning of their involvement.
IMO the handling (mishandling) of the crime scene from the second Heymer arrived is critical with many questions and will be a focus of the trial. It has been described to me as “sloppy, breach of standard minimum training, dangerous, and lacking” behavior by all.
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Bolding mine.
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I am curious how the jurors will react when they hear how the first officer responded. For some jurors, this may be the department they depend upon for the safety of their community.
If it is brought up at the trial that MB went to the station for assistance and was turned away, that is going to be very alarming for many. Perhaps this trial, whatever the outcome, will bring about change for the safety of the community and for law enforcement as well.
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We can only hope! I was saddened when the lawsuit against them did not move forward because I hoped that one of the outcomes of that was for this police force to see the errors in how they handle some situations.
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And the infamous “ear witness” will finally be unmasked for the masses.
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In one of my earlier posts in this thread, I posted a link about a Morris County officer that faced a 10 count indictment for striking and threatening the mother of his children. The same judge in MB case handled it. It was heavily negotiated down to a two year probation from a possible 10 year sentence. I wonder if someone who wasn’t a police officer would get the same deal.
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