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" BRANDON BOLLING is a marine captain and military defense attorney who defends soldiers for smoking pot on base or killing people they weren&amp;#039;t supposed to kill, like their wives. He is now stationed at the Naval Justice School in Newport, Rhode Island, where he coordinates a weeklong boot-camp seminar for military lawyers called Defending Complex Cases. The lecture topics generally rotate from year to year, but he now intends to keep one subject in the rotation--using post-traumatic stress disorder as a defense--permanently. &amp;quot;The reason it is important to have a class like that is because of the PTSD issues that relate from the action in Iraq,&amp;quot; Bolling says. Somewhat more expansively, he adds: &amp;quot;What I tell my clients is that if you and I go out and rob a bank, and I am robbing a bank because I want money for spring break and you are robbing a bank because you need formula for your children--we&amp;#039;re both bank robbers; you&amp;#039;re just a more sympathetic bank robber. The PTSD issues help you make the guy a less serious offender. They reduce the punishment.&amp;quot;  Matthew Denni was an early precedent. Not long ago, after he returned from Iraq, his wife approached him in their bedroom and informed him that she was leaving him for another man. Denni reached into his dresser, pulled out a 9mm handgun, and shot her once in the neck, killing her. Denni&amp;#039;s lawyer&amp;#039;s defense essentially amounted to this: Serving in Iraq gave Denni a severe case of PTSD, which explains why he snapped and killed his wife. A sympathetic jury refused to convict him of first-degree murder, reducing his prison sentence by several years. &amp;quot;This is what&amp;#039;s gonna happen,&amp;quot; says John P. Wilson, the nation&amp;#039;s foremost expert on PTSD among soldiers and a frequent expert witness in criminal trials. &amp;quot;With these guys coming home, the rates of PTSD will get real high. You&amp;#039;ll have this hypervigilant, hyperaroused guy, and then you&amp;#039;re gonna get a trigger. In domestic-violence cases, it&amp;#039;s gonna be an argument, and the guy is gonna snap.&amp;quot; Wilson helped defend a soldier suffering from PTSD in Indianapolis who received no prison time after confessing to pushing a woman against a wall and nearly slicing her throat in half.  Recently, another soldier, on leave from Iraq, allegedly got drunk, stole a truck, and drove it into a house that didn&amp;#039;t belong to him. Lance Corporal Roel Ryan Briones had helped clean up bodies from the alleged massacre in Haditha, where 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians were apparently killed by a group of marines, and his mother says his exposure to the carnage caused PTSD and that the condition explains her son&amp;#039;s violent actions.&amp;quot;You use this defense to tell the big picture,&amp;quot; says Richard L. Duquette, a defense attorney located near Camp Pendleton, California. &amp;quot;You use it to tell the story of what these people are doing. And that this is the expense of war.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a269/esq1006briefing-74/>