Opinion ID: 1386737
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Use of Dr. Schmidtgoessling was Defective Assistance of Counsel

Text: Fautenberry's counsel's reliance upon the testimony of Dr. Schmidtgoessling was defective. My objection to their reliance on her testimony, however, is not that counsel repeatedly emphasized adverse testimony, nor is it about the accuracy of her analysis; instead, I believe that her testimony was problematic because Fautenberry's counsel failed to possess even a rudimentary grasp of Dr. Schmidtgoessling's work sufficient to assess whether her conclusion was fairly grounded in her testing. On post-conviction review, Fautenberry has presented the opinion of Dr. Jeffrey Smalldon (Dr. Smalldon) to establish that Dr. Schmidtgoessling's testing was insufficient to support her conclusion: In fact, however, no recognized neuropsychological test battery was ever performed, and thus there was not available a sufficient body of data to justify a conclusionone way or the other about the presence of brain impairment. No professional with specialized training and experience in neuropsychological assessment would expect to learn from the limited battery of tests administered by Dr. Schmidtgoessling whether Mr. Fautenberry is brain impaired. [The tests Dr. Sehmidtgoessling administered] do not at present enjoy widely-accepted status even as effective means of `screening for' organic brain impairment, and that data derived from this battery, while perhaps suggestive, is not sufficient to rule out the presence of such impairment. J.A. at 1914 (Dr. Smalldon at 6) (emphasis added). Of course, the assertion that Dr. Schmidtgoessling's conclusion had no foundation in her testing is not true just because Fautenberry and his counsel have now found an expert willing to assert as much. We do not need to take Dr. Smalldon's word on the matter; Dr. Schmidtgoessling herself has previously admitted in another case that neither she nor any other staff member at the court's psychiatric clinic were qualified to conduct the type of testing and evaluation that was required to diagnose Petitioner with organic brain damage for the purpose of showing the effect of that factor at mitigation. Powell v. Collins, 332 F.3d 376, 395 (6th Cir.2003); see also id. at 384 (Dr. Schmidtgoessling admitted that she was `definitely not equipped' to conduct the necessary neuropsychological testing for this phase of Petitioner's case.). Thus, Fautenberry's counsel repeatedly emphasized to the sentencing panel Dr. Schmidtgoessling's conclusion of mental normalcy, which, as it turns out, she most likely had not conclusively established. Had Fautenberry's counsel been aware of the shaky foundations underlying Schmidtgoessling's conclusion, his counsel might have chosen not to provoke repeatedly her erroneous assertion and they might have continued to pursue a more conclusive determination. See id. at 400 (Dr. Schmidtgoessling's inability to provide conclusive evidence regarding organic brain damage made other avenues of investigation all the more crucial.). Counsel presenting mitigating evidence do not need doctorates in psychology to ply their craft; but just as counsel are required to have a basic understanding of forensic science when presenting forensic evidence, Fautenberry's counsel cannot call a psychologist to testify while counsel are ignorant of the foundations of her testimony and then hide behind technical psychological terms such as MMPI or Trails A and B. Recently, in the context of an arson prosecution, we have held that a lawyer must possess a basic understanding of the science that underlies his witness's testimony: Even more importantly, it is inconceivable that a reasonably competent attorney would have failed to know what his expert was doing to test the State's arson conclusion, would have failed to work with the expert to understand the basics of the science involved, at least for purposes of cross-examining the State's experts, and would have failed to inquire about why his expert agreed with the State. A lawyer cannot be deemed effective where he hires an expert consultant and then either willfully. or negligently keeps himself in the dark about what that expert is doing, and what the basis for the expert's opinion is. Richey v. Bradshaw, 498 F.3d 344, 362-63 (6th Cir.2007) (emphasis added) (citation omitted). Fautenberry's attorneys were thus under an obligation to understand the basic foundations of Dr. Schmidtgoessling's testimony, but they failed to fulfill this obligation. While `[a]n attorney is not required to be so expert in psychiatry so that he could diagnose a medical condition in the absence of any indicators, Clark v. Mitchell, 425 F.3d 270, 286 (6th Cir.2005) (alteration in original), that does not excuse deficient attorney performance when red flags alert him to the possibility of a mental deficiency. We have repeatedly denied petitions for habeas where the petitioner attempted to blame his attorneys for failing to diagnose brain damage despite a total absence of red flags indicating the potential for any brain damage. See, e.g., Clark, 425 F.3d at 285 (concluding that lilt was not unreasonable for Clark's counsel, untrained in the field of mental health, to rely on the opinions of these professionals who concluded that there was no brain damage); Campbell v. Coyle, 260 F.3d 531, 555 (6th Cir.2001) (Even though Dr. Chiappone as a trained psychologist failed to detect any evidence of PTSD, Campbell asks us to declare that his counsel's independent failure to make the same diagnosis is an objectively unreasonable mistake, depriving him of his Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel. There is no evidence that Dr. Chiappone was incompetent, or that Campbell's lawyers had any reason to question Chiappone's professional qualifications.). [2] An attorney, therefore, does not need to possess the skill to diagnose his client's hidden ailments and can generally rely on the expertise of a licensed practitioner. See Lundgren v. Mitchell, 440 F.3d 754, 772 (6th Cir.2006). For an attorney to fulfill his duty in the mitigation phase, one trained in law and advocacy need not also be expert in medicine, but a lack of training in medicine cannot excuse a failure of expertise in the law. Normally, [c]ounsel's diligence in obtaining not just the constitutionally mandated single mental health expert, but two mental health experts, shows that counsel engaged in a reasonable investigation. . . . Lundgren, 440 F.3d at 772. But the mere hiring of an expert is meaningless when counsel fails to use the expert's knowledge to understand the nature and limits of the expert's testimony. Richey, 498 F.3d at 362. Fautenberry's counsel could not be faulted for not diagnosing Fautenberry's mental impairments on their own, but once they decided to present a psychologist to the sentencing panel, they were under an obligation to under stand the basics of their witness's testimony. See Richey, 498 F.3d at 362-63; Skaggs v. Parker, 235 F.3d 261, 269 (6th Cir.2000) (stating that counsel had a responsibility to present meaningful mitigating evidence when the court concluded that it was ineffective assistance of counsel when defense attorneys called a neuropscyhologist who had falsified his credentials and whom counsel knew had previously done a laughable job at the first trial); Driscoll v. Delo, 71 F.3d 701, 709 (8th Cir.1995) (holding that defense counsel was defective for failing to understand the laboratory tests performed and the inferences that one could logically draw from the results when challenging the state's expert). Because they failed to grasp the basics of Dr. Schmidtgoessling's testimony, I conclude that. Fautenberry's counsel were defective. This is not, in contrast to the majority's suggestion, a question of whether or not Dr. Schmidtgoessling was correct in her analysis. Instead, the question should be whether Fautenberry's attorneys were sufficiently able to evaluate the correctness of Dr. Schmidtgoessling's analysis. Had Fautenberry's counsel been better equipped to scrutinize Dr. Schmidtgoessling's testimony and recognized the need for further investigation, they might have discovered evidence of an organic brain impairment. Fautenberry has now presented the statement of one medical professional who has reached quite a different conclusion than Dr. Schmidtgoessling: It is my opinion, offered with reasonable psychological certainty, that Mr. Fautenberry is brain impaired. J.A. at 1922 (Dr. Smalldon at 14). Dr. Smalldon concluded that the impairment was only mild, but added that it was by no means insignificant. 'Mild' when used as a descriptive adjective in this context only serves to differentiate one classification of brain injury from other classifications where the associated deficits might be even more dramatically apparent. J.A. at 1922-23 (Dr. Smalldon at 14-15). According to Dr. Smalldon, [b]rain impairment of the sort that is clearly apparent in Mr. Fautenberry's case can also cause serious problems in such areas of day-to-day functioning as impulse control; modulation of affect; planning; problem-solving; and the capacity to tolerate frustration. J.A. at 1923 (Dr. Smalldon at 15). Thus, there was readily available to Fautenberry's attorneys significant mitigating evidence, and the failure to collect and present readily obtainable evidence of this sort is classified as nothing short of an abdication of advocacy. Powell, 332 F.3d at 399-400.