Workshop: Traumatic Brain Injury and the Law
1 Hour | 1 CE
$100
This live webinar on Overview: Traumatic Brain Injury and the Law is presented by Michael L. Perlin, JD, and Heather Ellis Cucolo in partnership with Mental Disability Law and Policy Associates.
Individuals with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) have a great risk of becoming justice-involved. Research has established that persons accused of criminal behavior are at a high risk of having traumatic brain injuries that predate the offense with which they are charged. In such cases, there often is no discussion of diversion opportunities or a need for comprehensive evaluation and treatment. Often, expert witnesses assigned to evaluate such individuals have no experience dealing with this specific population, Additionally, attorneys assigned to represent this cohort may not have encountered individuals with TBI before and may not be familiar with behavioral manifestations that could be relevant as a defense or as mitigation in individual cases. A turn to the principles of therapeutic jurisprudence – focusing on dignity, voice, validation and voluntariness -- best offers lawyers (and judicial officers) an opportunity to remediate the full range of underlying issues that arise in cases involving, variously, quality of counsel, incompetency, insanity, death penalty, jury attitudes, perspectives from the bench, probation, and correctional issues. We will discuss why therapeutic must be taken seriously as a means of remediating the current untenable situation.