Forensic Ethics and the Expert Witness (PDF)

Robert Weinstock, MD completed his residency in general and adolescent psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, and a research fellowship in psychiatry at Boston University Medical School. He is certified in forensic psychiatry by the ABPN. Dr. Weinstock is former chair of the ethics committee of AAPL, and of the good forensic practice committee of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. While chair of AAPL's ethics committee the guidelines were revised twice and the only Opinions of the AAPL Ethics Committee promulgated. Dr. Weinstock co-edited Ethical Practice in Psychiatry and Law published by Kluwer in 1990, and has written numerous papers on forensic ethics. He chairs the California Psychiatric Association's Judicial Action Committee and has served on the APA judicial action committee and is a distinguished fellow of the APA. Dr. Weinstock is clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA where he is director of theforensic psychiatry fellowship program.

Richard Martinez, MD, completed undergraduate studies at Tulane University and a Master of Humanities degree at the University of Colorado. He received his M.D. from LSU Medical School in New Orleans and completed a Fellowship in the Division of Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School, followed by a Fellowship at the Center for Ethics and the Professions at Harvard University from 1994-96. As an Associate Professor in the Center for Bioethics and Humanities, he coordinated the clinical ethics and graduate medical education initiatives in ethics and professionalism for several years.

He has written on topics of professional ethics and social responsibility, organizational healthcare ethics, medical undergraduate education, boundaries in the patient-professional relationship, and the medical humanities. Currently, Dr. Martinez is the Director of Psychiatric Emergency and Forensic Services at Denver Health Medical Center and Denver County Jail and is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and Interim Training Director of the Fellowship in Forensic Psychiatry. He is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in the sub-specialty of Forensic Psychiatry and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

-Thomas G. Gutheil, MD
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Past president, American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law

"Candilis, Weinstock and Martinez make a major contribution to the discussion of bioethics and forensic psychiatry. The authors provide a comprehensive, clearly written history of bioethics and their own intriguing approach, "Robust Professionalism," to the analysis of ethical issues confronting forensic psychiatrists. They use the crucible of case examples to explore the strengths and weakness of a number of ethical systems and to demonstrate the components of sound ethical reasoning. A pleasure to read, this informative book is essential reading for forensic psychiatrists, scientific experts who provide courtroom testimony, attorneys and bioethicists." 

-J. Richard Ciccone, MD
Professor of Psychiatry
University of Rochester School of Medicine 

"Candilis and his colleagues have done a masterful job of setting out this history of forensic psychiatry ethics. Their scholarly explication of the subject also makes clear how complicated it is to work ethically in this subspecialty arena of medicine. This is a landmark text that makes a brilliant contribution to forensic ethics precisely because it is balanced, thoughtful, and persistently relevant to the work of forensic psychiatrists."

- Ezra E. H. Griffith, MD
Professor and Deputy Chair, Department of Psychiatry
Yale University School of Medicine