Opinion ID: 483595
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exclusion of Question to Psychiatric Expert

Text: 9 Hillsberg avers that the psychiatrist testifying as an expert for the defense should have been permitted to give his opinion as to whether, at the time of the shooting, Hillsberg had the capacity to conform his actions to the requirements of the law. The trial court sustained the government's objection to the question on the basis of Federal Rule of Evidence 704(b). We affirm the ruling. 10 Dr. William Crowley, Director of Forensic Services at Milwaukee County Medical Health Complex, testified for the defense. He had considerable experience in performing psychiatric examinations of defendants and testifying as to his findings. Dr. Crowley had twice examined Hillsberg. He testified that Hillsberg was suffering from no mental disease or defect, but did have a substance abuse disorder with the primary substance of abusing alcohol and a schizotypical personality disorder. 11 After Dr. Crowley testified to the above, Hillsberg's counsel constructed a lengthy hypothetical question, relating to whether Hillsberg had the capacity to form the requisite intent at the time of the killing. He asked Dr. Crowley to assume the circumstances leading to the confrontation and Hillsberg's intoxication. Dr. Crowley was asked his opinion as to whether, under those circumstances, Hillsberg would have had the capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. The trial court sustained the government's objection that the witness was improperly asked to give his opinion on an ultimate question of mental state under Fed.R.Evid. 704(b): 12 No expert witness testifying with respect to the mental state or condition of a defendant in a criminal case may state an opinion or inference as to whether the defendant did or did not have the mental state or condition constituting an element of the crime charged or of a defense thereto. Such ultimate issues are matters for the trier of fact alone. 13 We agree that, under the circumstances of this case, the question called for the witness to say whether Hillsberg had the capacity at the time of the incident to form the specific intent required for a conviction of second degree murder. The trial court correctly instructed the jury that the intent required as an element of second degree murder is the intent willfully to take the life of a human being or the intent to act in callous disregard of the consequences to human life. 14 Whether the defendant had the capacity to conform his actions to the requirements of the law was formerly the volitional prong of the insanity defense in this jurisdiction. Until recently, we applied the American Law Institute's (ALI's) definition of insanity: 15 A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law. 16 See United States v. Davis, 772 F.2d 1339, 1343 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 603, 88 L.Ed.2d 581 (1985). Congress recast that standard in 1984. Under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 20, 17 It is an affirmative defense to a prosecution under any federal statute that, at the time of the commission of the acts constituting the offense, the defendant, as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts. Mental disease or defect does not otherwise constitute a defense. 18 This removed the volitional prong, leaving only the cognitive prong, the ability to appreciate the nature and quality or wrongfulness of his acts. The mental states that fall under the two prongs are not mutually exclusive. A person unable to understand the nature and quality of his acts is likely to be unable to conform his behavior to the law. Cf. United States v. Lyons, 731 F.2d 243, 249 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 930, 105 S.Ct. 323, 83 L.Ed.2d 260 (1984) ([T]here is considerable overlap between a psychotic person's inability to understand and his ability to control his behavior.). But the volitional prong does cover one class of acts that the cognitive prong does not: those where the actor comprehends his behavior but is unable to check himself. An example of this narrower sense of the volitional prong is where a person acts under the compulsion of an irresistible urge. 19 The broad meaning of the inability to conform language is reflected in the present case. The question, whether Hillsberg could conform his conduct to the requirements of the law, does not make clear what it asks about Hillsberg's mental state. It could have been interpreted by the jury in at least two ways, which correspond to the volitional (in the narrower sense) and cognitive prongs of the ALI insanity test. It could ask, in lay terms, Was Hillsberg unable to control an impulse to shoot Pamonicutt? It could ask, Did Hillsberg know what he was doing? In the first sense, the question was irrelevant to the case. There was no testimony that Hillsberg acted under an irresistible impulse to shoot Pamonicutt. In the second sense, the question is dispositive of the issue of intent. An answer in the negative would say that Hillsberg could not have acted with the requisite intent, because he lacked the cognitive capacity to form that intent. 20 The second sense of the question exemplifies the sort of opinion on ultimate factual issues that 704(b) reserves for the jury. Crowley had not otherwise testified about the effects of the substance abuse disorder or personality disorder on Hillsberg's mental capacities. The latter was merely mentioned by name, schizotypical personality disorder, leaving the jury to guess as to what it might be. Without exploring the effect of Hillsberg's intoxication on his mental state, the inquiry went directly to whether or not, under the circumstances of the night of the shooting, Hillsberg lacked the capacity to form the intent required. The question was not posed in those specific legal terms; nor was it phrased in the terms of psychology. It merely rephrased the legal question in different terminology. Rather than using expert opinion to help the jury understand the factual issues in the case, the question called for the jury to take on faith the opinion of the expert as to Hillsberg's ability to form the intent required to commit murder. This is not a case where the psychologist gave an opinion in psychological or lay terms that, if accepted, would logically require a particular finding on an ultimate question of fact, but left that inference for the jury to make; the question called for the expert himself to make that final inference and decide the question in legal terms. 21 The trial court could also properly have excluded the question under Fed.R.Evid. 403, which permits exclusion where the probative value of evidence is outweighed by the danger that it would confuse the issues or mislead the jury. Here the standard was met by a substantial margin. The probative value of the question was slight. Dr. Crowley had already testified that Hillsberg suffered from no mental disease or defect. His testimony here was reduced, essentially, to the probable effect of alcohol on Hillsberg's mental state. The jury would likely have little knowledge of the effects of mental diseases and defects. Laymen do have occasion, however, to learn the effects of alcohol. Indeed, permitting an expert to describe the ordinary occurrence of intoxication in such orphic terms creates the danger of misleading the jury. Cf. United States v. Bright, 517 F.2d 584, 586 (2nd Cir.1975) (The court upheld the exclusion of testimony about defendant's passive-dependent personality disorder unaffected by psychosis or neurosis, reasoning that Couched in simpler language [the psychiatrist] was prepared to testify that appellant was a gullible person.). 22 The question's potential to confuse the jury was great. As discussed above, the question was ambiguous, not making clear in what sense Hillsberg might have been unable to conform his actions to the requirements of the law. In addition, the question was framed in terms of a part of a test for the insanity defense, a part that Congress had recently deleted. The jury members need not have been aware of the phrase's history to infer a formal and conclusive import from the legalistic wording of the question. That gave rise to two dangers: the jury could mistakenly have assigned to the question a legal and conclusive significance that it did not have and the question could have improperly brought the insanity issue in through the back door. 23 Hillsberg argues also that exclusion of the question violated his Sixth Amendment right to present a defense. We recently noted that this theory is applicable to cases where the trial court's ruling results in a defendant's total inability to present a theory of defense. United States v. Brown, 785 F.2d 587, 590 (7th Cir.1986) (Fifth Amendment right to testify not violated by exclusion of question where defendant permitted to introduce other evidence supportive of insanity defense). For example, there was no Sixth Amendment violation in excluding psychiatric testimony about defendant's depression, where defendant's wife and son had testified that he was depressed at the time of the crime. United States v. Buchbinder, 796 F.2d 910 (7th Cir.1986). 24 The Sixth Amendment might come into play if Hillsberg was foreclosed from presenting evidence of his intoxication, because it was central to his argument that he did not act with the requisite intent. Courts will, of course, invalidate applications of evidentiary rules which prevent a defendant from presenting his view of the facts, and therefore violate the Sixth Amendment. United States v. Davis, 772 F.2d 1339, 1347 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 603, 88 L.Ed.2d 581 (1985). For example, in United States ex rel. Enoch v. Hartigan, 768 F.2d 161 (7th Cir.1985), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 1281, 89 L.Ed.2d 588 (1986), application of discovery rules prevented a witness from testifying who provided the sole basis for impeaching the testimony of the victim on a vital point. But in the instant case, Hillsberg was permitted to introduce ample evidence as to his intoxication. The court simply excluded a single question that called for an expert witness to give his opinion on an issue that the jury was able and obliged to decide.