Q: Can a Psych evaluation be asked for during a trial to determine the character of someone?
Hypothetical Situation: A person is a child(who is of at least 20 years of age) of someone who is emotionally abusive. The parent behaves in a way in which that makes the child feel that they are in danger. The child acts in self defense and throws something that hits the parent and the parent presses charges. There are no signs of Self Defense. Could it be asked of the court that the parent take a psych evaluation for the sake of seeing if they are someone who the child would be in need to defend themselves?
A: If I were the judge, I would deny the request. For self-defense, the relevant issue is whether the defendant reasonably believed throwing the object was necessary to protect the defendant from threatened force on the part of the parent. Testimony of the psychiatric evaluator would be irrelevant to prove that because at the time the defendant threw the object, he or she didn't know what such an evaluation would show.
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