Going For Wins in Sexually Violent Predator Cases
By Allen Frances, MD July 8, 2011 During the past year, I have been involved as an expert witness for the defense in 14 SVP cases (tried in California, Washington, and Iowa). My role has been to clarify what is meant by the wording of the Paraphilia section in DSM-IV. And it certainly does badly need explaining. The DSM-IV Paraphilia section is written far too imprecisely to meet the high standard of precision needed in a legal context. This is because DSM-IV was written primarily for clinicians– not for lawyers, judges, forensic evaluators, and juries. I wish we had done…
