Diminished capacity or extreme emotional disturbance can have a remarkable impact on the length of a sentence. What forensic impact does a person’s psychiatric diagnosis or response to a possible provocation have (if any), on purposeful behavior, self-control, and intelligent decision making? Even then, how much forensic difference does diminished capacity or emotional disturbance make? Clearly, it matters more when the individual has a rather limited capacity to begin with, and vice versa.
Forensic psychiatry diminished capacity examinations must be able to do more than just identify potentially affecting conditions. The Forensic Panel applies its textured forensic experience to ascertain whether diagnoses, emotional conflicts, signs or symptoms of diminished capacity or extreme emotional disturbance affected the actor to a remarkable degree – or, for example, whether these were incidental to a crime driven by practical motivation such as profit and exploitation, or whether a motivation of revenge was resolute or hot-blooded.
Peer Reviewed Diminished Capacity Consultation
The Forensic Panel eliminates guesswork and generalizations with peer reviewed forensic consultation of diligent and energetic attention to detail, and careful history gathering from the defendant and from witnesses. Psychological testing that controls for malingering can also be employed by psychiatrists of The Forensic Panel – once history has been sufficiently gathered to portray a person’s potentials at the time of the crime.