Lawmakers OK proposal to make PTSD mitigation factor in sentencing

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An assembly panel has approved a bill that would make post-traumatic-stress disorder a mitigating factor judges can consider in sentencing criminals.

Under current law, a court must consider the protection of the public, the gravity of the offense, the rehabilitative needs of the defendant and any mitigating or aggravating factors to the crime. A crime can be aggravated by the circumstances of it, the nature of the victim and the nature of the offender.

The bill adds language that allows a judge, when sentencing a person who is a military veteran and has been diagnosed with PTSD related to his military service, to consider that as a mitigating factor.

Lawmakers with the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety unanimously approved the bill Thursday. The bill still needs to pass both houses of the Legislature and be signed by Gov. Scott Walker in order to become law.

The committee also approved a bill Thursday that would modify the state’s law against blackmail.

Under Wis. Stat. 943.31, a person who threatens to expose information that would injure the threatened person’s reputation, can be found guilty of a Class I felony, which could net up to a $10,000 fine, up to 3-1/2 years imprisonment, or both.

The proposal, AB 35, defines “information” to include any visual image or audio recordings and adds that the information may also be used to humiliate a threatened person.

The committee approved the bill on a 10-2 vote, with two Milwaukee Democrats and attorneys, state Reps. Evan Goyke and Fred Kessler, voting against the bill.

Goyke said that while he liked that the proposal clearly defined that more modern forms of information are protected, he could not vote for the bill because of the addition of the word “humiliate.” He said that there is no clear definition of the word in the state’s statutes and it has not been defined in any case law. The state’s criminal justice system, Goyke said, will likely struggle to define it.

Kessler agreed with Goyke, noting that using the word “humiliate” in the statute could create some First Amendment problems in some cases because it is an undefined, overbroad term. Follow @erikastrebel