Title: Pritchett v. Commonwealth
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 010030
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: January 11, 2002

Present:  Lacy, Hassell, Keenan, Koontz, Kinser, and Lemons, 
JJ., and Whiting, S.J. 
 
LIVINGSTON PRITCHETT, III 
       OPINION BY 
SENIOR JUSTICE HENRY H. WHITING 
v.  Record No. 010030 
January 11, 2002 
 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
In this case we consider the admissibility of proffered 
expert opinions concerning the mental retardation of the 
defendant and the susceptibility of mentally retarded persons 
to suggestive police interrogation in connection with the 
defendant’s contention that his confession was unreliable. 
 
Livingston Pritchett, III, was indicted in Montgomery 
County for the capital murder and robbery of Estel Darnell 
Singleton, Sr., and for the use of a firearm in the commission 
of those two crimes.  After a jury convicted him of first 
degree murder and of the remaining offenses, it recommended 
penitentiary sentences of life imprisonment for the murder 
conviction and several terms aggregating 13 years for the 
robbery and firearms convictions.  Overruling various defense 
motions, the trial court entered judgment on the verdicts. 
 
Pritchett appealed from his convictions to the Court of 
Appeals, contending that the trial court erred: (1) in 
admitting his confession because it was not voluntarily given 
and (2) in excluding expert testimony relating to his mental 
retardation.  The Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions in 
an unpublished opinion.  Pritchett v. Commonwealth, Record No. 
1430-l99-3 (December 12, 2000).  We awarded Pritchett this 
appeal limited to the second issue. 
 
At 8:00 a.m. on April 30, 1997, Singleton’s body was 
found with a single gunshot wound to his head in the picnic 
area of the Ironto Rest Stop on Interstate Highway 81 in 
Montgomery County.  Singleton's pockets had apparently been 
emptied and his wallet and other articles were found scattered 
near his body.  Although no automatic teller machine (ATM) 
card was found, there was an ATM receipt from a local bank in 
the wallet. 
 
Upon contacting the bank, a police investigator 
ascertained that there had been an attempt to use the ATM card 
two days after Singleton's body was found.  The bank also 
furnished the investigators with videotape from its ATM camera 
which showed the man who had attempted to use the ATM card.  
One of the investigators recognized the man as Pritchett.  
Pritchett was known to some of the investigators because he 
had been a witness in a prior murder case and occasionally he 
had paid friendly visits to some of the officers at their 
offices. 
 
An investigator arranged to have Pritchett come to the 
State Police Headquarters in Salem by telling him that the 
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investigator needed additional information concerning the 
prior case.  The Commonwealth admits that this was a pretext; 
when Pritchett arrived, the questions eventually turned to the 
Singleton murder case. 
Although the record does not reveal the contents of his 
initial statement to the investigators, Pritchett testified at 
trial that he had not been in the rest area where Singleton's 
body was found and he denied killing Singleton.  Pritchett 
admitted, however, that he attempted to use Singleton's ATM 
card and that he used one of the credit cards.  Pritchett 
claimed that he found these and other articles of personal 
property on the ground near a supermarket located some 
distance from the rest stop.  Investigators had found personal 
property belonging to Singleton in Pritchett’s motel room. 
 
According to the testimony of Investigator Jerry 
Humphreys, during the investigative interviews Pritchett 
denied killing Singleton until Humphreys asked: "[W]hat went 
so terribly wrong that day that you had to kill Mr. Singleton 
at the Ironto Rest Area[?]"  Describing Pritchett’s response, 
Humphreys testified: 
[H]e didn't say anything at first, and then he said with 
anger in his voice, ["]he was [a] faggot, he came to the 
bathroom, pulled a gun and call me a nigger.  I ran, we 
struggled, the gun went off["] and he maintained it was 
an accident when Mr. Singleton got shot. 
 
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Pritchett later proffered the testimony of two witnesses, 
both of whom qualified as experts in the field of psychology.  
Dr. Bernice Marcopulos, a clinical neuropsychologist, 
testified that tests she administered to Pritchett indicated 
that his intelligence quotient (IQ) was 69, placing Pritchett 
in the range of mildly retarded persons.  Both she and Dr. 
Stephen Herrick, a forensic psychologist, testified concerning 
Pritchett's limited communication skills. 
 
Dr. Herrick also testified that studies in his field of 
expertise indicated two factors which characterize people who 
"may be prone . . . to false confessions, and those are [1] 
compliance, people [who] generally day to day go along with 
[authority] figures, and [2] interrogative suggestibility 
which is an aspect of where in the moment that somebody is 
asking leading questions that they will go along with it."  
Dr. Herrick opined that "both these factors correlate very 
highly with people [who] have low I.Q.[s]." 
 
Dr. Herrick further described a brief test he 
administered to Pritchett by reading him a story which 
Pritchett was asked to remember.  The story was contained in a 
paragraph of approximately 40 words.  Dr. Herrick then asked a 
series of 25 questions, 20 of which were leading.  All the 
questions purported to reflect what was contained in the 
paragraph but the information in some of Dr. Herrick's leading 
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questions was not contained in the story.  Yet, Pritchett's 
"yes" or "no" answers to those questions indicated that 
Pritchett believed he knew that information.  When Pritchett 
was told that he had not answered a question correctly and 
that he needed to try to answer as best he could, Dr. Herrick 
testified that Pritchett "switched his answers thinking from 
the negative feedback that I was not happy with him so 
therefore . . . not only [is he] answering questions that 
weren't really in the story, but now he's changing his answers 
based on that slight negative feedback that I gave him." 
 
Further, in describing Pritchett's limited communication 
skills, his prior friendly relations with the police, and 
other background information, Dr. Herrick also testified: 
. . . I think he just went along with what they said, 
and even at the point of asking to . . . contact his 
mother, or whatever, and got refusals[; he] basically 
was just told no.  Well, he's not the type that's 
going to break through the doorway when an officer 
tells him no[;] he's going to sit and listen to him. 
 
 
After hearing and considering the proffer of the 
testimony of the two experts, the trial court ruled that "such 
testimony would invade the province of the jury as to the 
ultimate issue of intent [when the alleged crime was 
committed]," and refused to permit any of it to be presented 
to the jury.  The Court of Appeals approved this ruling on the 
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ground that there was no abuse of the trial court's discretion 
in excluding this evidence. 
 
On appeal, Pritchett contends that the evidence was 
admissible to assist the jury in assessing the reliability of 
his confession, which conflicted with his trial testimony.  
The Commonwealth responds that the trial court did not abuse 
its discretion in excluding the evidence because "the average 
juror" understands the issues presented by the proffer; thus 
expert opinion on the issues is inadmissable.  
 
While the court has the duty to determine whether 
Pritchett's confession was voluntary, it is the jury's duty to 
consider its reliability.  Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 
688 (1986); Williams v. Commonwealth, 234 Va. 168, 175, 360 
S.E.2d 361, 365 (1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1020 (1988).  
"[T]he physical and psychological environment that yielded the 
confession can . . . be of substantial relevance to the 
ultimate factual issue of the defendant's guilt or innocence."  
Crane, 476 U.S. at 689.  Under Crane, the Commonwealth and 
Pritchett were each entitled to introduce admissible evidence 
to assist the jury in determining whether the confession was 
reliable. 
 
Expert testimony is admissible if the area of expertise 
to which the expert will testify is not within the range of 
the common experience of the jury.  Coppola v. Commonwealth, 
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220 Va. 243, 252, 257 S.E.2d 797, 803 (1979), cert. denied, 
444 U.S. 1103 (1980).  Given the trial court’s conclusion 
"that mental retardation is not within the range of common 
experience of most juries," expert testimony on certain 
aspects of mental retardation should be admissible to assist 
the jury in evaluating the reliability of his confession.  But 
the trial court rejected the expert's testimony on the ground 
that it "would invade the province of the jury as to the 
ultimate issue of intent."*
 
An expert witness may not express an opinion as to the 
veracity of a witness because such testimony improperly 
invades the province of the jury to determine the reliability 
of a witness.  Fitzgerald v. Commonwealth, 223 Va. 615, 630, 
292 S.E.2d 798, 806 (1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1288 
(1983).  Dr. Herrick's broad statement that Pritchett "just 
went along with what they said" could be construed as an 
evaluation of the unreliability of Pritchett's confession and 
a comment on the truth of that part of Pritchett's trial 
testimony which differed from his confession.  So construed, 
it was an inadmissible statement regarding Pritchett's 
                     
*The trial court accepted the Commonwealth’s argument at 
trial that the proffered testimony dealt with Pritchett’s 
mental capacity at the time the alleged crimes occurred.  On 
appeal, the Commonwealth correctly perceived that the 
testimony was directed to Pritchett’s mental capacity at the 
time of his alleged confession. 
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veracity which the trial court correctly excluded as an 
invasion of the province of the jury.  Coppola, 220 Va. at 
252-53, 257 S.E.2d at 803-04. 
 
But this Court has previously held that an expert may 
testify to a witness's or defendant's mental disorder and the 
hypothetical effect of that disorder on a person in the 
witness's or defendant's situation, so long as the expert does 
not opine on the truth of the statement at issue.  Fitzgerald, 
223 Va. at 629-30, 292 S.E.2d at 806; Coppola, 220 Va. at 252-
53, 257 S.E.2d at 803-04.  In the present case, the balance of 
the expert testimony did not characterize the truth of the 
statement of any witness - it merely presented information on 
subjects unfamiliar to the jury that would assist it in 
determining the reliability of Pritchett's confession.  For 
that reason, this testimony should have been admitted. 
 
Nevertheless, the Commonwealth argues that any such error 
was harmless.  We do not agree with the Commonwealth.  If the 
jury concluded that significant portions of the confession 
were not reliable, it might not have been willing to convict 
Pritchett solely on the circumstantial evidence presented by 
the Commonwealth, which was in sharp conflict with his denial 
of having killed Singleton.  Given this conflict in the 
evidence, we cannot say that the error was harmless beyond a 
reasonable doubt. 
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Accordingly, we will affirm the case in part, reverse it 
in part, and remand it to the Court of Appeals with 
instructions to remand the case for a new trial. 
Affirmed in part, 
reversed in part, 
   and remanded.
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