Five years after the United States invaded Iraq, America's justice system often finds itself struggling to cope with returning soldiers.
Incidents such as the case of Joseph Cho, a former Penn Law student who is also a military veteran facing charges of attempted murder, have cast questions on the role of post-traumatic stress disorder in the legal process.
Cho spent almost a year in a mental-health facility after he allegedly fired 15 shots into the door of his Indian neighbors, who he believed were spies. Peter Bowers, Cho's lawyer, said Cho's combat history is not known.
PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to terrifying events, like warfare.
Last year, Bowers said PTSD would be explored during his treatment, but how or if PTSD affected Cho's mental health remains unknown.
The number of veterans with PTSD is also unknown, but last year saw a 70-percent jump in the number of soldiers diagnosed compared to 2006, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The VA also estimates that 30 percent of returning troops will suffer from some form of the disorder.
"PTSD is more prevalent in our current generation of soldiers because of their multiple recurring tours," said Pete Conaty, a California veterans' rights lobbyist.
The Armed Forces and VA's inadequacies in diagnosis and treatment has left prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges grappling with PTSD's role in criminal cases.
"If a person suffers from PTSD it goes toward whether or not they can form intent," said Philadelphia attorney Alfonso Gambone, a former Army prosecutor.
Gambone added that defense attorneys, especially in civil courts, will try to allude to PTSD, even when its existence is in question.
"In most of my cases when defense counsels tried to assert it . it turned out the person wasn't even in combat," he said.
Last January, California became the first state to formally acknowledge the plight of veterans with the disorder when it passed an alternate-sentencing measure that allows judges to place PTSD-stricken veteran offenders out of jail and into treatment.
The measure was originally passed in 1982 and stated that judges could send Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD into federal custody for treatment; however, the law was rendered largely ineffective due to an absence of any federal treatment programs.
In 2007, San Diego public defender James Faulder was the state's first defense attorney to use the measure when he defended a recently discharged Marine charged with bank robbery.
Surveillance footage captured Faulder's client displaying symptoms of PTSD prior to the robbery. Faulder said his client was "pumping himself up," walking in and out of the bank - what Faulder called an attempt to regain the adrenaline-driven euphoria he experienced while on combat missions.
After a formal diagnosis of PTSD from a VA doctor, the judge released Faulder's client to seek treatment at the VA.
