Criminal Responsibility, Insanity and Specific Intent Evaluations

Dr. Selina Mangassarian provides forensic neuropsychological and psychological evaluations addressing criminal responsibility, legal insanity, diminished actuality, and capacity to form specific intent. She is a paneled neuropsychologist and forensic psychologist with the Superior Court of California in both Los Angeles County and Ventura County, and has conducted criminal responsibility evaluations across a broad range of charges and defendant presentations in both jurisdictions.. These evaluations focus on the defendant’s mental state, cognitive functioning, psychiatric symptoms, and neuropsychological factors relevant to the legal question.

Why Neuropsychological Expertise Matters in These Cases

Criminal responsibility evaluations frequently involve defendants whose mental state at the time of the offense was influenced not only by psychiatric symptoms but also by cognitive and neuropsychological factors that standard psychiatric evaluation may not fully capture. Dr. Mangassarian’s neuropsychological training is particularly relevant when a defendant has a history of or suspected:

• Traumatic brain injury or acquired neurological conditions affecting reasoning, impulse control, or reality testing
• Intellectual disability or borderline intellectual functioning
• Neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism spectrum disorder or ADHD that affected behavioral regulation or understanding of social norms
• Psychotic disorders with cognitive sequelae
• Substance-induced states with neuropsychological implications
• Complex presentations where multiple psychiatric and cognitive factors intersected at the time of the offense

In these cases, objective neuropsychological testing provides data that goes beyond what clinical interview and psychiatric rating scales alone can offer, and can meaningfully strengthen or contextualize the opinions offered to the court.