Because of new treatments for PTSD, a Wisconsin appeals court handed down a favorable ruling in a Vietnam War veteran’s second-degree murder case that could result in the amendment of his 40-year sentence, Courthouse News reports. Twenty years ago, after Robert Schueller fatally shot another man following a bar fight, his sentencing judge found that Schueller’s combat-related PTSD diagnosis “diminished” his culpability for the murder – but also that a lack of effective PTSD treatments meant his potential for violent outbursts would always be a threat to the public. The judge put him under state supervision until he was 80, at which point he could no longer harm others.
Last year, Schueller contested this sentence, with an expert report that cited a 2012 study which found 92% of patients who received cognitive processing therapy of varying lengths no longer had a PTSD diagnosis by the study’s conclusion. On Thursday, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals found that the initial sentence hinged not on the need for punishment per se, but on the idea that Schueller’s PTSD symptoms would never abate. “Had the sentencing court known that, as a result of advancements in treatments, Schueller’s PTSD might be alleviated to the point that he no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, the sentencing court might have determined that Schueller posed less of a perpetual danger to the community, and may have imposed a shorter sentence,” Wisconsin appellate judge Rachel Graham wrote in the 22-page opinion.