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Proving PTSD Post-Prison Sentencing, By BILL TRIPLETT
Proving PTSD Post-Prison Sentencing, By BILL TRIPLETT
(EXCERPT) William DiMascio, a Vietnam veteran and an attorney, is a man on a mission. He has a thing about fairness, which he thinks some of his fellow veterans have been denied. Big time. Take, for instance, Commer Glass, an ex-infantryman with the 1st Cav who saw some of the bloodiest early battles in the Ia Drang Valley. One night in 1975, Glass took his stabbed and bleeding girlfriend to the emergency room of a hospital near where he lived in Pennsylvania. Try as they did, doctors couldn't save her. Glass said he wasn't sure, but he may have been the one who killed her. He couldn't remember what had happened other than blacking out - when she was still very much alive and well. When he came to, he said, she lay there, mortally wounded. At his trial the following year, the jury concluded that Glass indeed was the one who killed her and convicted him of first degree murder. Almost 30 years later, Glass still maintains he has no recollection of that fateful evening. Not that it really matters: Even DiMascio believes Glass "probably" did it. Still, DiMascio thinks Glass did not receive completely fair consideration at his trial. Glass, he argues, came back from Vietnam with "a certifiable case of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder,"which, he acknowledges, in no way excuses or exonerates Glass from his act. But DiMascio claims it does call into question whether the given sentence - life - accurately and justly reflects the degree of conscious responsibility Glass bears. In the American Psychological Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which the U.S. judicial system relies on when defendants claim some form of diminished psychological capacity as a mitigating factor, PTSD is recognized as a seriously debilitating mental condition and therefore merits consideration of lesser culpability. However, the APA did not recognize PTSD before 1980, the year the disorder first appeare... U.S. and friendly nation laws prohibit fully reproducing copyrighted material. In abidance with our laws this report cannot be provided in its entirety. However, you can read it in full today, 23 Jan 2004, at the following URL. (COMBINE the following lines into your web browser.) The subject/content of this report is not necessarily the viewpoint of the distributing Library. This report is provided for your information and discussion. http://www.vva.org/TheVeteran/2003_1...ost_prison.htm --------------------------- Otis Willie Associate Librarian The American War Library http://www.americanwarlibrary.com |
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