Opinion ID: 1527587
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Lack of an Explicit Finding by the Trial Judge.

Text: Unfortunately, the trial judge never made an explicit finding that psychiatric experts reasonably rely on the kind of evidence which the District presented through the testimony of Dr. Byrd and Dr. Cornet. His sole articulated explanationthat an exception to the hearsay rule applied cannot be viewed as the substantial equivalent of such a finding. Although Melton's counsel never explicitly directed the judge's attention to the need to address the question of reasonable reliance, this may well be so because the judge denied counsel's request to approach the bench. We decline to remand the case, in spite of the trial judge's failure to make an explicit finding on the question on which the admission of the contested evidence depended, because we are satisfied that to do so would be both unnecessary and futile. The authorities cited in this opinion, and especially the Advisory Committee's note to Rule 703, persuade us that the drafters of that Rule viewed psychiatric reliance on information provided by family members and hospital records as reliable in principle. In the present case, in which the issue was whether Melton was likely to injure himself or others, the failure to make such an inquiry would have been subject to justifiable criticism. The accounts by different family members tended to substantiate each other and to corroborate the psychiatric testimony as to the effects of failure to receive medication. We discern no appreciable possibility that the judge would make a finding that such reliance was unreasonable, when that result would be so contrary both to the teachings of the authorities which we have cited and to the judge's own rulings in this case. The proper finding should have been made explicitly, but there was more than ample basis in the record for the judge to overrule Melton's objection. By contrast, the record gives us no reason whatever to conclude that the statements and records which the two psychiatrists described in their testimony are not of the kind reasonably relied on by experts in the field. As the court stated under very similar circumstances in Lawson, supra note 27, 653 F.2d at 302 n. 7, Lawson points out quite correctly that Dr. Sheldon never testified, and the district court never found, that this information was of the type reasonably relied upon by psychiatrists.[ [31] ] The court must make such a finding in order to satisfy the requirements of Rule 703. United States v. Hollman, 541 F.2d 196, 201 (9th Cir.1976); Bauman v. Centex Corp., 611 F.2d 1115, 1120 (5th Cir.1980). We may take judicial notice, however, that psychiatrists customarily use such information to make a diagnosis. See Notes of Advisory Committee to Rule 703. The district court's error, under the circumstances in this case, is harmless. To remand the case simply for the purpose of requiring the judge to make the prescribed finding now would be a symbolic rather than a practical act, which we view as unnecessary and as incompatible with [g]ood judicial husbandry, United States v. Dogan, 314 F.2d 767, 772 (5th Cir.1963). Accordingly, we decline to prolong this already protracted proceeding further by remanding the case.