Opinion ID: 1563959
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Dr. Martone

Text: Dr. Martone's responsibilities to the court of common pleas require that she evaluate defendants for competency and for dispositional recommendations after a finding of guilt. In her official capacity, Dr. Martone examined Appellant five times after the shootings, the first time being on May 2, 2000, only four days after the shootings occurred. It was Dr. Martone who initially determined that Appellant was not competent to stand trial. During the guilt phase of trial, the trial court denied, on conflict of interest grounds, Appellant's request that Dr. Martone testify regarding Appellant's alleged insanity. [15] However, the court did allow Appellant to question Dr. Martone concerning her psychiatric examination and findings. Appellant's questions to Dr. Martone concerned her examination of Appellant on two occasions in May 2000. Dr. Martone testified that, based on those examinations, she had diagnosed Appellant with schizophrenia of the paranoid type and had determined that he suffered from auditory hallucinations. At the penalty phase of trial, Appellant sought to present similar and/or additional testimony from Dr. Martone [16] to address the mitigating factors described at 42 Pa. C.S. § 9711(e)(2), concerning whether the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance, and 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(e)(3), concerning whether the defendant had a substantially impaired capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law. However, the court refused Appellant's request because it determined that allowing Dr. Martone, a court employee, to testify for either Appellant or the Commonwealth at this point of the trial would represent a conflict of interest between the court's neutrality and the interests of the litigants. Additionally, the court was further concerned that if other inmates became aware that Dr. Martone could be called to testify, they would be reluctant to speak openly to her. The court also noted that Dr. Martone had not examined Appellant for sanity, but rather only for competence to stand trial, and that Appellant had at his disposal several psychiatric expert witnesses who had testified for Appellant during the guilt phase of trial and who would be available to testify during the penalty phase of trial. Moreover, the court ruled that Appellant could read Dr. Martone's guilt-phase testimony to the jury during the penalty phase and could present argument based on that testimony. N.T. Trial, 5/9/01, at 2748-51. [17] Appellant now argues that the court abused its discretion by refusing to permit Dr. Martone to testify at the penalty phase of trial. First, Appellant contends that the ruling violated a local rule of criminal procedure, All.C.R.Crim.P. 300.31, which provided: [18] In the trial of any homicide case, after a verdict of Murder of the First Degree is recorded and the court proceeds to the determination of whether a sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty should be duly imposed, as required by 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711, the court may, upon application of the defense, permit the calling of Behavior Clinic representatives in mitigation. Second, Appellant refutes the reasoning that Dr. Martone's testimony would have represented a conflict of interest because Dr. Martone had already testified during the guilt phase of Appellant's trial. Additionally, Appellant contends that the court's fear that defendants would be less likely to speak with Behavior Clinic psychiatrists if they knew that these individuals might later testify, is unfounded if such testimony would be beneficial to the defendants, as purportedly Dr. Martone's testimony would have been for Appellant. Appellant also notes that Dr. Martone had testified in 1995 at the penalty phase of one other capital defendant tried in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, as evidenced by our discussion in Commonwealth v. Fears, 575 Pa. 281, 836 A.2d 52, 72-74 (2003). [19] Third, although Appellant acknowledges that during the penalty phase of his trial he presented the testimony of two other psychiatric experts for support of the mitigating factors about which he wanted Dr. Martone to testify, he contends that Dr. Martone's testimony would not have been cumulative of this testimony. Appellant contends that Dr. Martone's testimony would have carried greater credibility with the jury than Appellant's hired witnesses because she would have been purportedly viewed by the jury as a neutral witness. Moreover, unlike Appellant's other experts, Dr. Martone examined Appellant near-immediately after the shootings. Additionally, Appellant alleges that his testifying experts were not familiar with the standards of the mitigating factors set forth at 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(e)(2) and (3), even though they testified that in their professional opinions, Appellant met those standards. See Appellant's Brief at 59. We shall address these three arguments seriatim. First, as is plain from its words, now-repealed Allegheny County Criminal Rule 300.31 placed the determination as to whether a Behavior Clinic representative would testify upon a defense application within the sound discretion of the trial court; the rule did not mandate that the court grant all requests made under the rule. Therefore, there is no violation of the rule absent a showing of an abuse of discretion. Moreover, Appellant never cited this rule to the court as a basis for his argument that Dr. Martone should testify; Appellant is raising this theory for the first time on appeal. See N.T. Trial, 5/9/01, at 2746-52. Second, Appellant's argument concerning the trial court's stated reasoning for not allowing Dr. Martone to testify does not compel the conclusion that the trial court abused its discretion; in fact, it compels the opposite conclusion. In Commonwealth v. Widmer, 560 Pa. 308, 744 A.2d 745 (2000), we reiterated the well-known definition of abuse of discretion as follows: The term `discretion' imports the exercise of judgment, wisdom and skill so as to reach a dispassionate conclusion, within the framework of the law, and is not exercised for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the judge. Discretion must be exercised on the foundation of reason, as opposed to prejudice, personal motivations, caprice or arbitrary actions. Discretion is abused when the course pursued represents not merely an error of judgment, but where the judgment is manifestly unreasonable or where the law is not applied or where the record shows that the action is a result of partiality, prejudice, bias or ill will. Id. at 753. Here, Appellant does not establish that the court's reasoning was based on prejudice, personal motivations, or capricious or arbitrary actions; rather, Appellant simply disagrees with the court's reasoning. The record plainly shows that the court had serious and reasonable concerns with allowing any litigant to call Dr. Martone to testify, given her position with the court and her ongoing, critical duties, which could be jeopardized should she be subject to being called as a witness without sufficient cause. Further, the record shows that the court took into consideration the fact that Appellant had at least three other witnesses qualified to testify as to the same mitigating circumstances for which Appellant wished to call Dr. Martone. Finally, the court observed that the jury already had the benefit of Dr. Martone's testimony, and that Appellant would be free to publish to the jury, during the penalty phase, the substance of that testimony. Thus, there is no basis in the record to conclude that the court's determination that Dr. Martone should not testify in the penalty phase, based on a potential conflict of interest, was based on partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill will. [20] Finally, Appellant's argument that Dr. Martone's testimony would not have been cumulative of that of his two psychiatric experts who testified during the penalty phase of trial is not persuasive. Notably, Appellant does not indicate how Dr. Martone's testimony would have differed significantly from that of his other witnesses, or indeed from that testimony Dr. Martone had already given the jury during the trial phase and which was available for re-publishing to the jury during the penalty phase. Rather, the differences Appellant cites to involve two other aspects: (1) the fact that Dr. Martone had actually examined Appellant near-immediately after the crimes in May 2000, unlike his other two witnesses; and (2) Dr. Martone would have been considered by the jury as a neutral witness instead of one biased because of being hired by the defense or, in the case of Matcheri S. Keshavan, M.D., by being Appellant's regular treating psychiatrist. With respect to the fact that Dr. Martone had examined Appellant in May 2000, we note that the testimony Dr. Martone had already given to the jury involved precisely her examination of Appellant in May 2000, and her findings from those examinations. Appellant does not explain how Dr. Martone would have presented anything new had she been allowed to testify during the penalty phase. Indeed, the record establishes that during the penalty phase, Appellant presented only truncated versions of the testimony of his expert psychiatric witnesses, Drs. Keshevan and Merikangas, because their guilt-phase testimony was incorporated by reference at the penalty phase. See N.T. Trial, 5/10/01, at 2924-25 and 2944. Moreover, Appellant had the opportunity to call to testify, but chose not to do so, Laszlo Petras, M.D., a hospital staff and Beaver County Jail psychiatrist, who had actually evaluated Appellant on the day of the murders, and who had testified for Appellant during the guilt phase of trial. With respect to Dr. Martone's neutrality, it is only speculative that the jury might have considered her a more persuasive witness, particularly as her examination of Appellant was limited to no more than five encounters and was expressly confined to the question of whether Appellant was competent to stand trial. By contrast, Dr. Keshavan had treated Appellant for mental illness for seven years prior to the shootings. Both Dr. Keshavan and Dr. Merikangas described the severity of Appellant's mental illness and the potentially exacerbating effect on his mental illness of Appellant's not taking his medications, which Appellant posited, with some evidence, was the case at the time of the crime spree. Further, with the witnesses he presented at the penalty phase, Appellant carried his burden of proving to the jury the mitigating circumstance described at 42 Pa. C.S. § 9711(e)(2), concerning whether the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance. Thus, the absence of Dr. Martone's testimony regarding this mitigating factor did not result in prejudice to Appellant. In addition, the alleged bias of Drs. Keshavan and Merikangas and the fact that they did not examine Appellant close to the time of the crimes proved no impediment to Appellant in proving this mitigating circumstance. Appellant did not prove the mitigating circumstance described at 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(e)(3), concerning whether the defendant had a substantially impaired capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law. Appellant contends that Dr. Martone's testimony would have helped establish this mitigating factor. Appellant's Brief at 59. However, Appellant sets forth absolutely no basis for this conclusion. Again, Appellant does not indicate what testimony Dr. Martone would have provided to help establish the subsection (e)(3) mitigating factor. Further, Appellant does not indicate how Dr. Martone would have helped achieve Appellant's goal of establishing this mitigating factor when she had examined Appellant only to determine competency to stand trial, not for a general assessment of sanity. There is no questioning the importance of a capital defendant's right to present mitigating evidence at the penalty phase of trial. However, in light of the above discussion, we must conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying Appellant's request to present the testimony of Dr. Martone.