Threat Assessment After Online Posts: What New York Counsel Should Ask a Forensic Psychiatrist

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Violence and Threat Risk

A screenshot of an alarming post is not, by itself, a threat assessment. The forensic task is to place the words in a behavioral trajectory—angry speech, fixed belief, or movement along a pathway toward targeted violence—without overclaiming what any clinician can predict. The line the law draws, and the line psychiatry draws Two different questions hide inside one set of posts, and counsel should keep them separate. The legal question is whether the communication crosses from protected expression into punishable conduct. New York's aggravated harassment statute reaches a communication made with intent to harass that threatens physical harm and places the recipient in reasonable fear (Penal

Most relevant service: Violence & Threat Risk Assessment