The problems of psychiatric expert witness by pathological reaction to alcohol

Abstract

We presented a case of brutal murder in the condition of pathological reaction to alcohol. The author also gives a brief view of forensic-psychiatric literature data on this problem. The conclusion is that clinical descriptions are not precise in details which makes certain unsecurity and confusion in expert witness. The problem is more complicated with the fact that these conditions mostly last for a short period o f time and are transitory, so that expert witness see a man of normal psychic condition. Diagnosis of pathological reaction to alcohol automatically includes the judgement of total inaccountability which is seldom accepted both in criminal law and in public. In that situation expert witness feels insecure, being aware of the reaction of jurisdiction and public to such an expertise. That is the reason why they often are not precisly defined in literature data and have not enough professional and social sourage to make the diagnosis of total inaccountability. Inspite of all these imprécisions, such conditions have some things in common: they are not common and well known condition of "drunkeness" but they present conditions of true psychosis (mental illness) with transitory character. Although we know that alcohol is only the provocative factor, the real cause of these conditions still remains unknown.