[Evaluating extensive consciousness disturbance. Roulette or well-founded forensic diagnostics?]

The difficulties of experts to judge and evaluate so-called affect crimes are due to theoretical and conceptual shortcomings on the one hand and problems of reproducibility on the other. This study describes an attempt to set up diagnostic guidelines for such cases. A vulnerability/stress model was developed which integrates features from different areas: predisposition (including social perception, thinking, and problem solving), triggering conditions (mainly derived from stress theories and concepts), and the established Sass criteria (1983). The characteristics of these respective diagnostic features were collected from a sample of 31 criminal responsibility examinations. Finally, implementing multivariate analysis, 13 criteria were established that could be useful in evaluating criminal responsibility with regard to consciousness disturbances in that they enable testimony based on the prognostic and discriminant validity of the individual criteria.