Opinion ID: 1174739
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Quashing of Psychologist Subpoena

Text: Defendants claim the lower court erred in quashing a subpoena requiring the attendance at trial of Dr. Barbara Liebroder, a licensed psychologist, on behalf of defendants. As indicated earlier in this opinion, Dr. Liebroder had conducted a psychological evaluation of Wanda Lairby pursuant to an apparent agreement between the former prosecutor on the case and the defense. Defendants paid for the evaluation, and a copy of the written evaluation was ordered to be given to defendants just prior to trial. Dr. Liebroder planned to attend the trial on October 28, but was notified by defense counsel to appear instead on the morning of October 29. Counsel for Dr. Liebroder appeared on her behalf on October 29 and moved to quash the subpoena. [7] The trial judge questioned defense counsel with respect to Dr. Liebroder's proposed testimony. [8] Defense counsel stated that the evaluation had been done to determine Wanda Lairby's competency to testify, specifically directed to a possible mental condition affecting her veracity. Defense counsel did not allege that the report revealed Wanda Lairby was indeed suffering such an aberration, but that the report was sufficiently suggestive to make Dr. Liebroder's testimony relevant and material. [9] Defense counsel admitted that Dr. Liebroder's conclusions were not made known to him, [10] but he argued that defendants were entitled to put her on the stand and any admissibility issues could be resolved there. The court granted the motion to quash after stating: There is no law I know of that permits somebody to come into this court and usurp the prerogative of the jury and tell the jury whether or not someone is telling the truth or whether they're fantasizing or whether they were able to influence someone else. Thus, the court granted the motion to quash based on its own ground. Defendants argue that the trial court's decision is directly inconsistent with State v. Miller, Utah, 677 P.2d 1129 (1984), where, they assert, this Court held admissible a psychiatrist's opinion concerning the credibility of a witness (the defendant) and the witness' tendency to fantasize. Defendants misstate the Miller holding. In Miller, the psychiatric testimony concerned the defendant's peculiar personality trait that affected his reality-testing abilities and created a long-standing tendency to fantasize. Such testimony, we stated, would have allowed the jury to better consider whether Miller possessed the specific intent necessary to conspire to burn his store ... and would also have been strongly corroborative of Miller's claims that he was only fantasizing in his discussions with Stewart and that he never had any intention of acting on any of their ideas or conversations. Id., 677 P.2d at 1132. In the present case, the defense wanted to offer expert testimony on the question of whether Wanda Lairby suffered from a mental condition which affected the truthfulness of her own testimony and that of her daughter Virginia. Dr. Liebroder might have been able to testify about Wanda Lairby's psychological capacity for untruthfulness or delusional testimony, but Dr. Liebroder could not have offered any views on the testimony actually given. The testimony was apparently intended as an expert opinion on the credibility or lack thereof of both Wanda and Virginia Lairby. There having been no indication whatsoever in the evidence that either Wanda or Virginia suffered from some mental aberration requiring the analysis of a psychiatric expert, we are unable to see error in the trial court's refusal to permit such expert testimony relating solely to credibility. Furthermore, even if the trial court erred in excluding the testimony, we are unpersuaded that such testimony could reasonably have resulted in a different verdict. Dr. Liebroder's testimony would have concerned Wanda Lairby's mental condition, but there is absolutely no basis [11] for concluding that it would have helped defendants' theory. Moreover, there was no evidence of Wanda Lairby exhibiting any hostility or aggression toward her husband vis-a-vis the children at any time previous to the investigation of these charges. There was no evidence of prior conflicts between Timothy and Wanda Lairby with respect to the Lairby children and Virginia in particular. Virginia Lairby's testimony was sufficiently credible and consistent to appear unrehearsed and not the result of coaching and was corroborated in many essential respects by the testimony of Carri Long. Dr. Liebroder's testimony would have, at most, been speculative and of little or no assistance to the jury in their evaluation of defendants' conspiracy theory.