Opinion ID: 213950
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: MRI Evidence

Text: According to Dr. Gur's report, Montgomery's MRI revealed structural abnormalities, including reduced brain volume in the right parietal lobes and right medial gray matter. Right parietal dysfunction, according to the report, manifests itself behaviorally in loss of sense of self, difficulties in emotion processing, attentional neglect and depressed or flat affect. At the Daubert hearing, the experts interpreted a graph in Dr. Gur's report that charted the deviation of Montgomery's MRI results from normal. Montgomery's parietal and medial gray matter regions were less than one standard deviation from normal. Dr. Evans explained that Montgomery's results were within the normal range and that approximately fifty percent of the population would have comparable results. Montgomery's ventrical measurements were one standard deviation from normal, and Dr. Evans stated that approximately thirty percent of the population would have similar results. Drs. Evans and Mayberg testified that Montgomery's deviations were not statistically significant because none of her measurements deviated more than one standard deviation from the mean. Dr. Mayberg also testified that to infer statistical analysis from numbers within the normal range and extrapolate about complex behavior that doesn't have a known brain organization is basically having an opinion that far exceeds both the data we have here and what is known in the literature. Dr. Gur testified that, even if the deviations were not statistically significant, they were nonetheless clinically significant. Dr. Gur compared Montgomery's right parietal and medial gray matter to her left-side counterparts. Based on his eyeball comparison, he determined that Montgomery's right parietal and medial gray matter appeared abnormally low. Dr. Evans testified, however, that Dr. Gur had failed to show that Montgomery's left-right difference was abnormal. The district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the MRI evidence from both the guilt and the penalty phases of the trial. It found unreliable the methodology underlying Dr. Gur's opinion that the results were clinically significant. Moreover, it found that the MRI results had no scientifically recognized significance. Accordingly, the district court concluded that the results were irrelevant to Montgomery's insanity defense and the mitigating factors she pleaded. The district court thus exercised its authority to exclude, as irrelevant, evidence not bearing on the defendant's character, prior record, or the circumstances of [her] offense. Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 604 n. 12, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978) (plurality opinion).