Filicide, medical empathy, directives of the Supreme Court and reduced punishment.

The role of empathy in the preparation of legal-psychiatric assessments is a controversial issue which has been discussed in the professional literature and in the practice in Court. The focus of the controversy is the question of objectivity versus subjectivity in the examiner and the worries about empathy leading to over-identification with the examinee. In this paper the authors will discuss relevant literature. They will also, for explanatory reasons, analyze a landmark decision of the Israel Supreme Court dealing with a case of filicide--a decision which may be understood as giving an increased role to the empathic perceptions of the evaluating psychiatric expert".