More veterans are using PTSD as defense in criminal cases

From the Los Angeles Times

As awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder grows, veterans' lawyers are finding juries sympathetic. But the case of Joshua Stepp, who killed his infant stepdaughter, is testing how far that defense can go.

After a decade of combat overseas, growing numbers of veterans are relying on PTSD as a central element of their defenses in criminal cases. [Joshua] Stepp's trial is being closely watched as one measure of just how far defense lawyers are able to push in arguing that the disorder influences veterans' criminal behavior.

The number of such cases will rise as more veterans return from Afghanistan and Iraq with post-traumatic stress or other trauma from repeated combat tours; already, more than 170,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have been diagnosed with PTSD, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2009 helped pave the way for combat trauma — and military service itself — to mitigate sentences. In that case, the court reversed the death sentence for a Korean War veteran because his military service and combat-induced psychological damage weren't presented at sentencing.

Noting that the U.S. has "a long tradition of according leniency to veterans in recognition of their service," the court said "juries might find mitigating the intense stress and mental and emotional toll" of combat.

Today, more than 80 special veterans' treatment courts have been established nationwide and hundreds more are planned, said Christopher Deutsch, a spokesman for the National Assn. of Drug Court Professionals.

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