Jessie Batcher Case

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a type of mental illness closely associated with military veterans. Jessie Bratcher, a 27-year-old Iraq veteran, facing a 25-year sentence for first-degree murder, claimed he suffers from PTSD. Oregon native, Batcher, shot Jose Ceja Medina six times for allegedly raping his girlfriend, Celena Davis. The state of Oregon ruled that Jessie was guilty of murder, however, deemed him insane due to PTSD. Jurors conceived this was not merely a crime of passion, but an offense of a severely disturbed man affected by years of deployment without proper medical care. Instead, the state sentenced Batcher to Oregon State Hospital Psychiatric Unit1.
PTSD is a psychiatric disorder, described as “re-experiencing an

PTSD symptoms have severely influenced how his peers perceive him; when they look at Jessie, they see an anxious man, “a ticking time bomb”1. His friends remember and amiable man, who was always smiling. However, after his last deployment to Iraq, many traumatic events had erased Jessie’s smile. One major turning point for Batcher was witnessing his friend get crushed to death in battle. Once home, the veteran sought help from Veteran Administration Hospital on several occasions for PTSD, however, they rejected his claim. Resulting in having Batcher continued to go untreated, which is a danger to society as PTSD-induced flashbacks are extremely vivid, alike to reliving the moment2. Jessie was not simply remembering the traumatic events from his time in Iraq, he was re-experiencing them in

One of the major ethical implications in serving justice for someone who is claiming a mental illness is balancing the severity of the illness with that of the crime. Mainly to also prevent the perception that these murders would not be impugned. However, it should be considered that physicians at the Veterans Administration Hospital did not offer the PTSD care the patient deemed necessary. Nonmaleficence is at the core of a doctor’s actions, however, in this case not treating resulted in more harm to the patient and others. In doing so, doctors also disregarded the patients’ autonomy in their decision to have themselves committed for their altered mental state. Invalidating the patients claim and affecting their trust, which is the pinnacle of the patient-doctor relationship. With psychiatric patient even more so because there must be a level of trust in the person’s claim and in their determination, that they might be having a breakdown. A beneficial scenario for the parties involves would have been if the doctors’ actions promoted more good, or beneficence, and gave Jessie better tools to cope with his PTSD. Instead, of taking an inactive approach, which allowed the situation to escalate to the point he became a danger to himself and others. Batcher served in the military for years, essentially working as a trained killer, who