Opinion ID: 157705
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Denial of Expert Examination

Text: Parks contends that his constitutional rights to compulsory process and due process were violated because the State trial court improperly denied his request for a clinical examination of the child victim by a qualified medical expert. Parks requested a clinical examination by an expert to determine whether or not the child’s hymen was broken. “[T]o establish a violation of the right to compulsory process, a fair trial or due process, a defendant must show a denial of fundamental fairness.” Richmond v. Embry, 122 F.3d 866, 872 (10th Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 118 S. Ct. 1065 -11- (1998). “It is the materiality of the excluded evidence to the presentation of the defense that determines whether a petitioner has been deprived of a fundamentally fair trial.” Id. (quotation omitted). Parks must make some showing that the witness’s testimony would have been both favorable and material to the defense. See United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858, 867, 872 (1982). Parks has not shown that the excluded evidence would have been of such an exculpatory nature that its exclusion affected the trial’s outcome. See Richmond, 122 F.3d at 872. As the district court noted, Parks was not charged with a crime requiring penetration. Merely showing he was deprived of the testimony of a medical witness is insufficient to establish a constitutional violation. See Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. at 867. Moreover, his attorney conducted crossexamination of the State’s medical expert. Thus, we find the denial of an expert examination of the victim to challenge the State’s testimony that her hymen was broken did not render the trial fundamental unfair.