Perinatal Expert Witness

Although there is a new law in Illinois that recognizes postpartum illness as a factor in criminal cases*, it is often an overlooked diagnosis as most women arrested and convicted of crimes do not get screened or assessed for postpartum mental illness. Moreover, many lawyers aren’t educated in women’s mental health and fail to recognize the need for a perinatal specialist. Most women who are accused of infanticide or filicide are not given a legal defense that includes a perinatal psychological assessment. In both innocent or gulity pleas, they are sentenced as a homicide, and often berated in sentencing with condemnation by judge, jury, courtroom audience, and media due to the nature of the crime. With some mitigation in trial, in sentencing, or in post conviction work with a psychological evaluation, report and testimony, specific to maternal mental health, a woman offender can experience a more fair outcome, including psychiatric hospitalization.

It is essential to find the accurate type of expert or consultant who has the ability to assess a woman’s medical and psychosocial history, specifically in reference to maternity, while discerning psychosis, insanity, i.e. knowing right from wrong.

I have assessed and treated 100’s of women with perinatal mental health disorders in my group practice. I have also been trained through Postpartum Support International and SEAK (The Expert Witness Training Company), have done research, writing, and presentations on perinatal mental health, all of which enable me to provide professional judgement and educated discretion in cases of perinatal mental health as it meets the legal world.

*As of 2018, there is a new law in Illinois, PA 100-0574, formerly known as HB 1764, that recognizes postpartum illnesses as a factor in criminal cases. The law is groundbreaking because it is the first criminal law in the nation to reference in any way postpartum illnesses.  It makes postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis a mitigating factor in sentencing. It also, for the very first time in Illinois provides for a new sentencing hearing after a valid sentence has been imposed.