Preparation with the Defense Expert

This is a brief review. I add that the defense expert should be consulted early, not late in the case. Experts should help prepare early interrogatories. They should list the question they want answered in early depositions. They should read plaintiff expert publications, and point to contradictions with case expert reports and other testimony.

Appellate Decision on Abusive Depositions

One should walk out, get a ruling from the judge. According to the author of the article, that may embolden abusiveness.

Murder - Suicide Over Hours or Days

Anabolic steroids found at the scene.

Pre-Adolescent Abuse a Risk Factor for Suicidal Behavior

It is independent of other risk factors.

Attorney Flops Around on VTech Shootings

Daniel W. Shuman, attorney, flops around in his editorial. "...there is good reason to conclude, in this case, that the threshold for emergency intervention failed to do what it ought to do." "One suspects that public policy in Virginia will demand less risk tolerance after this incident." "A word of caution: There will be no simple, single fix for what went wrong in Blacksburg at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007."

Get the lawyers out of the running of psychiatry. Reverse, by Federal statute, the abomination of the Supreme Court decision that qualified the murderer for care after he murdered 32 people and himself so that Shuman's lawyer friends can have more jobs.

The sole effective remedy that prevents suicide is long term treatment, and compliance with such.

Divorce Anger Results in Shooting of Wife and Self

But, in front of 7 year old daughter.

Clueless Forensic Psychiatrists

Hand-wringing American College of Forensic Psychiatry has trouble with the self-evident conclusion of the Virginia Tech shootings. The moderator, a lawyer, wants more data, because 32 murders and a suicide are not enough data for Dr. Steven Pinkert.

Here is a clue, Dr. Pinkert. This paranoid schizophrenic could not be forced into treatment until he committed his murders and suicide. Now, he qualifies for treatment.

If you loved this massacre, thank the rent-seeking lawyers on the Supreme Court. They took over the governance of psychiatry to generate jobs for three lawyers every time a dangerous mental patient refused care. There were no abuses to remedy. There was lawyer unemployment to remedy. In order to commit a person, one must now show imminent dangerousness. One must have a lengthy hearing. During the hearing, the prosecutor will prosecute. The defense lawyer will defend. And, a magistrate, yet another unemployed lawyer, will decide the clinical need of this dangerous mental patient, without the slightest knowledge of psychiatry. So three lawyers can pursue the rent, hundreds of victims get murdered. Thousands of mentally ill people commit preventable suicide, each year.

The pro-lawyer rent seeking members of this organization still wonder about the meaning of this massacre. The public sees the obvious. They demand changes in this Supreme Court horrible, lawyer full employment, rent seeking abomination.

No Duty of Therapist to Warn of Suicide

So held a Florida appellate court.

Still Waiting

It's been weeks. I requested the data showing that following garbage guidelines of suicide assessment reduced the risk of suicide. No one has provided data yet, not Drs. Harvey Dondershine, Richard Frierson, Jon Grant, Shawn Shea, not the JCAHO, not lawyer Skip Simpson. I have patience.

Mission

To end lawsuits for suicide because they contradict the modern, multi-factorial understanding of the causes of suicide, and indirectly hurt many unseen patients. The sole claim for suicide with merit involves assisting the suicide in violation of law.

This site is for defendants and defense lawyers in suicide malpractice suits, to improve defense expert testimony, perhaps to reduce losses in adverse settlements or verdicts.

These settlements and judgments devastate the practice of psychiatry. They cause the needless incarceration of thousands of suicidal patients without proof of benefit. The resulting defensive treatments consume a large fraction of the budget for wasteful treatment and starve proven preventive measures. These lawsuits are also morally wrong. They extort money from the party least influential in the many factors causing the suicide of the victim, the clinician trying to help. If they continue, the most suicidal and neediest patients will be avoided.

Explaining modern, multi-factorial understanding of the causes of suicide in plain language may result in more common sense judgments from jurors. The defendant may also prosecute, with licensing boards and in court, attorneys promulgating "junk science." The frivolous, malpractice lawsuit, because of profound, indirect impact on medical costs and life threatening errors, is another serious ethical lapse.

In systems closed to attorneys (e.g. the military), the rate of suicide may be cut by a large fraction reliably, quickly, at almost no additional expense.