Are there impartial expert psychiatric witnesses?

Posttraumatic stress disorder in tort actions: forensic minefield.

The authors discuss posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a basis for personal injury litigation. Three case examples raise issues related to: (1) the controversy surrounding expansion of tort liability, (2) the courtroom use of psychiatric nomenclature as represented in the DSM (e.g., PTSD), and (3) ethical concerns regarding psychiatric expert witnesses. Psychiatrists became easy targets wh...

Jury bias and psychiatric experts: judges' impressions of international medical graduates as expert witnesses.

John H. Wigmore on the abolition of partisan experts.

The American justice system traditionally has relied on expert witnesses hired by adverse parties, resulting in the appearance of dueling hired guns. There have been attempts to reform the system through court-appointed impartial experts, but trial attorneys have resisted them. Celebrated cases have brought the problem to the forefront--for example, the 1924 murder trial of Richard Loeb and Nat...

The Insanity Defense: Asking and

The authors address the main questions in the insanity defense debate: Should it be abolished? Should psychiatrists participate as expert witnesses? Is the profession damaged by such testimony? Is there a logical leap between providing psychiatric findings and providing an opinion to the ultimate question? Because the free will/determinism model underlying the current insanity defense positions...

Courts and torts: the psychiatrist preparing for trial.

OBJECTIVE To outline how a psychiatric expert can do an impartial assessment and medicolegal report and then give an effective presentation in court that can sustain cross-examination. METHODS The legal principles of litigating emotional trauma are reviewed, including proving causation, characterizing emotional suffering, assessing disability, and determining a realistic prognosis. RESULTS ...