Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones saw the horrors of the Iraq war firsthand, including the site where his fellow Marines allegedly killed 24 women, children and other civilians at Haditha.

So when he returned to Kings County, Calif., got drunk and drove a stolen pickup into someone's living room, family and friends blamed the psychological effects of war, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

His crime, like others committed by returning war veterans, caught the attention -- and sympathies -- of lawmakers and veterans groups. California passed legislation in 2006, and at least four other states have drafted or considered laws to empower judges to send these veterans to treatment in lieu of prison because their crimes may be the by-product of war.

But a yearlong examination by The Sacramento Bee found veterans sometimes had criminal records and other questionable backgrounds before enlistment, and experts said that since crime is not a typical symptom of PTSD, their subsequent crimes more likely were a product of their backgrounds than of the war.

"It's an excuse, the way I see it," said Catherine Casey, whose 16-year-old daughter was killed in 2006 by another former California-based Marine driving drunk in Minnesota. "To use it as a crutch or an excuse for our behavior is, as far as I'm concerned, unacceptable."

Casey, a police investigator who does background checks for the Minneapolis Police Department, was angry not only because her daughter died but also because she learned the man who killed her had a history that included alcohol offenses before he joined the military.

The public for decades has recognized that war can cause psychological problems, but it was the post-Vietnam era that spawned a large number of studies into what became known as PTSD.

The Bee's examination found that the services are accepting a growing number of recruits with criminal backgrounds, and experts said they are more likely to suffer PTSD and more likely to respond to stress by committing crimes.

"If these individuals who because of their past histories and their genetics are prone to be violent and have been violent in the past, stress can exacerbate that behavior," said Dr. Elisabeth Binder, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University in Atlanta who has recently completed a PTSD study.

Lance Cpl. Briones' criminal history in the southern San Joaquin Valley began long before he experienced the stress of a combat zone, and that criminal history is directly connected to his ending up in Iraq.

"He wasn't a person who I would classify as a real upstanding citizen, before or during the military," said Kings County Deputy District Attorney Adam Nelson.

Arrested, enlisted

Briones was arrested on felony drug charges on July 20, 2003, after Hanford police received complaints about intoxicated people at a convenience store. Officers found seven baggies in Briones' pockets that they reported contained marijuana and money, an indication he had been selling drugs, according to Nelson.

Briones was "very intoxicated," the police report says, and he "was out of control at the jail and had to be restrained to keep him from hurting himself or others."

Later, Nelson said, "his attorney contacted our office and said the guy wants to go into the military. At the time, we said that would probably be the best thing for him."

The office agreed to drop charges if Briones enlisted, but Nelson now thinks that agreement was a mistake.

Shortly before he deployed to Iraq in 2005, Briones was charged with drunken driving in Orange County, not far from the Marine Corps' Camp Pendleton. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years' informal probation.

In 2006, the Marines charged Briones with stealing $4,000 in night-vision goggles and binoculars in Iraq and with trying to send two 9 mm pistols in the mail. The Marines also accused Briones of a rape at Camp Pendleton.

That same year, he came home on leave to Kings County, stole a pickup and drove it into a living room, with a blood-alcohol level nearly double the legal limit.

A police report described Briones' behavior in the jail as "combative," similar to his behavior in jail before he joined the military.

Still, his war experiences were quickly blamed. "My boss was getting crank calls at his house, swearing at him because he's prosecuting this hero," Nelson said.

Briones faced a maximum sentence of three years and eight months for vehicle theft, DUI and vandalism, but he pleaded guilty only to vandalism and received a two-year sentence. All the military charges were withdrawn shortly after the accident.

Nelson said a psychiatric evaluation found that Briones "was suffering from stress, but that it was not an excuse for what he did."