When a defendant has an extreme psychiatric condition, is developmentally or intellectually disabled or was under the influence of certain substances or duress at the time of the crime, the ability to form criminal intent may be realistically questioned. Occasionally, however, the obscurity of a violated law and the defendant’s actions around the time of the crime, as well as a particular diagnosis, may reflect a legitimate inability to form criminal intent. Examinations by a forensic psychiatrist that delve into such subtleties must be fact-based, rooted in diagnostic standards and free of expert biases.
Peer Reviewed Capacity to Form Criminal Intent Assessment
Forensic psychiatrists of The Forensic Panel have the expertise and experience to apply a depth of understanding of psychiatric diagnosis, symptoms and history to an expert assessment of the capacity to form criminal intent. These complex questions demand expertise in obscure diagnoses and conditions that only fleetingly manifest themselves. Given the controversy understandably accompanying the question of criminal intent, The Forensic Panel’s peer-reviewed expert consultation brings medical and forensic certainty to courts and attorneys looking for the last word when there are questions of the capacity to form criminal intent.