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Not Guilty By Reason Of Victimization, Susan Rutberg

Publications

As criminal defense lawyers we are privy to our clients' psycho-social histories in a way that others in the system are not. We have a responsibility to educate judges and juries about the relevance of traumatic events to the formationof specific intent, and to the significance of PTSD as a factor in mitigation at sentencing. We do much more for our clients if we can bring this information to light early on, as part of our representation of first-time offenders. While the PTSD defense has been employed almost exclusively in homicide cases, we must not hold this defense in reserve …