She wanted the judge to require Washburn to call his witnesses outside of the presence of the jury and have them testify under oath. Then the two sides could argue over whether such testimony was admissible, and the Court could rule on it. If the evidence was admitted, the same witnesses would have to give exactly the same testimony later in front of the jury.
If the Court refused to hold the hearing, testimony got heard for the first time with the jury present. In this case, if the Court then ruled that the testimony should not have been admitted, the only remedy was to instruct the jury to pretend they had never heard it. Popularly known as "unringing the bell," this was a notoriously ineffective way to deal with the problem.
Mills went into her pitch. "The defendant claims PTSD, Your Honor, but the defense here is that he didn't do it. If he didn't do it, then his state of mind is irrelevant. All this is going to do is put his war record and injuries in front of the jury to excite sympathy."
Washburn, leaning back with his legs crossed, ran a finger around in his ear. "My client was blacked out during the period where it appears Mr. Nolan was killed, Your Honor. First, evidence of PTSD will support his claim that he can't remember anything about this period. Second, if he did kill someone and there is a doubt about his mental state because he might have been in a PTSD episode, then he is entitled to that doubt. The crime would certainly be less than premeditated murder, maybe voluntary or even involuntary manslaughter."
This brought the first sign of Tollson's courtroom testiness. "I believe I understand the issues, Counselor." He spent a few more seconds looking over Mills's pages, then squared them and put them down with Washburn's questionnaire. "I'm going to allow two weeks for motions. Until we know what the jury will hear, we can't tell them how long the case will be, so jury selection starts two weeks from today. Sound good?"
It sounded good to Mills. She'd gotten her hearing. A good omen.
Tollson continued. "My staff will have the jury commissioner start to put panels together. Six court days for jury selection, including three days of hardship. Six weeks of trial or so if you get into PTSD, probably four at the outside if you don't. Let's get outside on the record and get to work."
EVERETT WASHBURN STOOD in the center of the courtroom, addressing his first witness in the hearing on PTSD. Dr. Sandra Overton was a frizzy-haired, earnest psychiatrist in her mid-forties. She wore a dark blue business suit with low heels. She had already recited her credentials and experience as a psychiatrist-i.e., a medical doctor-specializing in veterans returning from active combat. "In your experience with these veterans, Doctor," Washburn asked her, "have you run across a condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD?"
She almost laughed at the question. "It's pretty much all I work with."
"Can you tell the Court exactly what it is, then?"
"Certainly." She looked across at the prosecution table, where Mills sat with her hands folded in front of her, then around and up to where the judge sat on the bench. "It's pretty much what the name says. It's a psychiatric disorder that occurs after an episode of traumatic stress."
"A psychiatric disorder? Do you mean it's a mental illness?"
She shook her head. "That's not really a descriptive term. Legally it would qualify as a disease, defect, or disorder. Medically it is more a range of continuing symptoms and reactions experienced by someone who's endured a traumatic event. The key word being
"In what way?"
"Well, almost everyone who experiences a traumatic event has a reaction to it. Shock, or depression, or insomnia. But with PTSD, the reaction first tends to be more serious and second, it persists for a lengthy period of time, sometimes forever. It becomes a disorder, not a reaction."
"And what is a traumatic event, Doctor?"
Again, Overton shook her head. "There's no one definition. What's traumatic for one person might be relatively innocuous to another. But certainly traumatic events would tend to include military combat, serious accidents, crimes such as rape, natural disasters, terrorist incidents, and the like."
"Military combat?"
"Yes. Very commonly. Although the disorder wasn't much studied until after the Vietnam War. Before then, when people talked about it at all, it was usually called Da Costa's syndrome. But since Vietnam, estimates of soldiers with combat experience suffering from PTSD have run as high as thirty percent."
"And what are some symptoms commonly associated with PTSD?"
