As a long-time member of AAPL, I ask that you support me for APA President-elect.
My activities with AAPL include participation in the Annual Programs, becoming certified by the original forensic board, reviewing articles for Journal of AAPL, helping Dr. Len Hertzberg form the Chesapeake AAPL Chapter, and being an officer of that Chapter for many years.
Historically, my ties to forensic psychiatry go back to Isaac Ray. My great grandfather, Charles Doe [1830-1896], Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, exchanged letters with Ray, a correspondence that contributed to the longest standing NGBRI in this country, the New Hampshire doctrine, 1871. Doe took the position that "an act caused by mental disease is not a crime, a contract or a will" -- a neat summary of many forensic psychiatric issues.
It is important that the APA become a representative democracy. So, I have successfully championed the need for the APA to facilitate AAPL having a strong voice within the APA. This was done through motions to have allied organizations have a seat in the Assembly and for the Chesapeake AAPL Chapter to have a seat on the Washington Psychiatric Society's Board of Directors.
If I am elected President-elect, my next steps in enhancing APA's becoming a representative democracy will include:
1. Ask AAPL, not only to have a voice in deciding who is on APA components within the Council on Psychiatric and the Law, but also to suggest corresponding membership for AAPL members on other APA components that the AAPL leadership regards as important to forensic psychiatry, e.g., Council on Social Issues and Public Policy or Council on Healthcare Systems and Financing. [I have had motions successfully passed by the APA Board of Trustees that there is no limit in the number of corresponding members a component can have.]
2. I will encourage the Assembly to give major psychiatric subspecialty organizations, such as AAPL, more than one vote in the Assembly.
The APA must become more of a representative democracy, and if elected President-elect, I will ask that AAPL help me achieve that goal.
