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

Of the 1.6 million military members who are now veterans, about 670,000 have been deemed to have a disability that is connected to their military service.

Changes in the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual are likely to have an effect in the courtroom.

In August 2011, Christopher McNulty stood in his girlfriend’s Sturgeon Bay garage, a 22-caliber rifle in his hands and local police outside the door.