Opinion ID: 1200238
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Admissibility of Wolfe's Testimony.

Text: Wolfe's expert testimony was not based on accepted scientific principles, was not helpful to the trier of fact, and therefore should not have been admitted into evidence. Although I would order release independent of evidentiary rulings for the reasons stated above, the majority's treatment of the evidence issue deserves a dissent in its own right. In the dark heart of the sex predator statute is the legislative denial of free will and individual responsibility. This is true because a sexually violent predator is legislatively defined as one who suffers from a mental abnormality or personality disorder which makes the person likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence.... RCW 71.09.020(1). Necessarily one who simply commits a violent sexual act through volitional choice is outside the statute. Such an individual is what the criminal law is made for. But in theory the person who does this because his mental abnormality or personality disorder  makes  him do it is not a person acting by his free will and, consequently, not one who can be held accountable for his choices. Therefore evidence is necessary to distinguish between those who volitionally act of their free will and those who don't. On its face future acts of violence based on free choice are not only outside the statute but would seem unpredictable in principle. On the other hand one would expect those acting out their nonvolitional destiny by reason of a mental abnormality or personality disorder which causes violent sexual conduct would show themselves through the application of diagnostic criteria proved in the scientific arena to be reliable and accurate through repetition and replication. Reciprocally, when such predictions are not based on proven methodology they lack the competence justifying consideration by the trier of fact because they provide no factual assistance, only prejudice, speculation, and/or what some may call junk science. The necessity for testimony based upon good science is only heightened by the statistical observation that 88 percent of sex offenders will not reoffend if released, [2] although even if the ratio were reversed we would still require proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the specific individual at bar met the criteria. If expert testimony does not reliably and validly distinguish the individual within the statutory class subject to commitment from he who is not, a grave injustice has occurred because we have deprived an individual his liberty without sufficient factual basis. Thus a probing inquiry into the scientific basis of such testimony as a threshold to its admission into evidence is not only entirely appropriate but absolutely necessary. According to the majority, Campbell challenges the admissibility of Mr. Wolfe's testimony because he generally questions the ability for anyone to `predict dangerousness.' Majority at 779. To this, the majority counters, [b]oth this court in Young, 122 Wash.2d at 56-58, 857 P.2d 989, and the United States Supreme Court in Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 896-903, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1983), have specifically rejected this kind of argument. Majority at 779 (footnote omitted). But the majority misconstrues Campbell's argument and fails to acknowledge ample authority supporting his position. Campbell challenges the admissibility of Wolfe's testimony on the basis of Frye v. United States, 54 App. D.C. 46, 293 F. 1013, 34 A.L.R. 145 (1923) and ER 702. Campbell does not generally question the ability to predict dangerousness but specifically challenges the unscientific method employed by Wolfe to make his prediction in this case. [3] Campbell argues [w]hile Wolfe continued to claim an actuarial basis for his conclusion, the evidence he presented was purely clinical and therefore inherently unreliable. Reply Br. of Appellant at 24. Notwithstanding overwhelming expert testimony that questioned the validity of predicting dangerousness using either method, the trial court admitted Wolfe's opinion testimony absent a generally accepted scientific basis. The rationale of the Frye standard, which requires general acceptance in the relevant scientific community, is that expert testimony should be presented to the trier of fact only when the scientific community has accepted the reliability of the underlying principles. State v. Copeland, 130 Wash.2d 244, 255, 922 P.2d 1304 (1996) (citation omitted). While it is not the function of the court itself to assess the reliability of the evidence, `[i]f there is a significant dispute between qualified experts as to the validity of scientific evidence, it may not be admitted.' Id. at 255, 922 P.2d 1304 (quoting Cauthron, 120 Wash.2d at 887, 846 P.2d 502). Thus, the question is whether the psychiatric community has accepted the reliability of either the clinical or actuarial method to predict dangerousness. To answer, we must undertake a searching review which may extend beyond the record and involve consideration of scientific literature as well as secondary legal authority. Copeland, 130 Wash.2d at 255-56, 922 P.2d 1304 (citations omitted). When conducting risk assessments, mental health professionals employ two distinct methods. With the clinical approach, expert evaluators consider a wide range of empirically validated risk factors and then form an overall opinion concerning the offender's recidivism risk. R. Karl Hanson, What Do We Know About Sex Offender Risk Assessment?, 4 Psychol., Pub. Pol'y, & L. 50, 52 (1998). In contrast, the actuarial approach considers a small number of variables but applies explicit rules for translating the rankings on the individual variables into an overall risk rating. Id. at 62. There is, however, widespread agreement among mental health experts that clinical predictions of dangerousness are highly unreliable. In literally hundreds of comparisons over many domains including the prediction of recidivism, clinical judgment has essentially never been found to be superior to actuarial methods, whereas the converse has most often been demonstrated (Grove & Meehl, 1996; Mossman, 1994). Some studies have shown better-than-chance (i.e., they outperformed blind guesswork) performance by clinicians, but many have not. No studies have demonstrated that clinicians' judgments are more accurate than those of laypersons, and there is at least one study showing that they are not (Quinsey & Ambtman, 1979). Grant T. Harris et al., Appraisal and Management of Risk in Sexual Aggressors: Implications for Criminal Justice Policy, 4 Psychol., Pub. Pol'y, & L. 73, 88 (1998). Nor, for that matter, has the reliability and validity of the actuarial method been established either: Although significant advances have been made in the ability to predict sex offender recidivism, the application of these schemes to individuals convicted under sexual predator laws is still problematic. Even though the actuarial prediction scheme significantly improved prediction over chance, there are still a number of false positives and negatives. Judith V. Becker & William D. Murphy, What We Know and Do Not Know About Assessing and Treating Sex Offenders, 4 Psychol., Pub. Pol'y, & L. 116, 126 (1998); see also Eric S. Janus & Paul E. Meehl, Assessing the Legal Standard for Predictions of Dangerousness in Sex Offender Commitment Proceedings, 3 Psychol., Pub. Pol'y, & L. 33 (1997); Gary Gleb, Washington's Sexually Violent Predator Law: The Need to Bar Unreliable Psychiatric Predictions of Dangerousness from Civil Commitment Proceedings, 39 UCLA L.Rev. 213, 227 (1991). Even those who cautiously endorse the actuarial method acknowledge the theory has not gained general acceptance. See R. Karl Hanson, supra, 4 Psychol., Pub. Pol'y, & L. at 52; Grant T. Harris et al., supra, 4 Psychol., Pub. Pol'y, & L. at 90-91; Eric S. Janus & Paul E. Meehl, supra, 3 Psychol., Pub. Pol'y, & L. at 60-61; Gleb, supra, 39 UCLA L.Rev. at 246-47. Since neither the clinical nor the actuarial method to predict the likelihood of reoffense has gained general acceptance in the psychiatric community, the Frye standard has not been met. To hold otherwise would be to allow preference for result to dictate the boundaries of science. The majority erroneously contends Young and Barefoot v. Estelle have conclusively decided this issue adverse to the prisoner. Not so. In Young this court cited one study in support of the proposition that sexual recidivism may be accurately predicted; however, it did not endorse the quite different proposition that such predictions are generally accepted as reliable and valid. As Frye requires general acceptance before a scientific theory may be presented to the jury, Young's analysis does not establish the requisite general acceptance. Barefoot is equally inapplicable. There the appellant argued his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated by the State's use of psychiatric testimony at the sentencing phase of his capital case. When Justice Blackmun argued in his dissent scientific proof was lacking to establish future dangerousness, the Court responded [t]he federal cases cited [by the] dissent as rejecting `scientific proof' ... are not constitutional decisions, but decisions of federal evidence law. Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, at 899 n. 6, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090. But the issue here is evidentiary. Neither Young nor Barefoot addressed the evidence issue raised by Campbell, nor has the majority. Wolfe's testimony was equally inadmissible under ER 702 because it was not helpful to the trier of fact. ER 702 allows testimony by an expert only if it will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence. This includes an evaluation of the admissibility of a particular expert's opinion based upon general acceptance, if any, of the principles from which he reasons. If there is a precise problem identified by the defense which would render the test unreliable, then the testimony might not meet the requirements of ER 702 because it would not be helpful to the trier of fact. State v. Cauthron, 120 Wash.2d 879, 890, 846 P.2d 502 (1993). State v. Greene, 139 Wash.2d 64, 984 P.2d 1024 (Wash.1999) is also helpful. There we held expert testimony the defendant suffered from disassociative identity disorder (DID) would not be helpful to the trier of fact and refused to admit it notwithstanding the admitted expertise of the witness. Although we found DID is generally accepted within the scientific community as a diagnosable condition, this does not necessarily mean, however, that such evidence is admissible in any particular case. Greene, at 73, 984 P.2d at 1028. Rather, scientific evidence is inadmissible under ER 702 unless it is helpful to the trier of fact under the particular facts of the specific case in which the evidence is sought to be admitted. Greene, at 73, 984 P.2d at 1028 (citation omitted) (emphasis added). An examination of the particular facts in Greene revealed the experts were unableusing any methodto reliably evaluate the sanity of a defendant suffering from DID. According to the testimony and argument in this case, however, none of the various approaches have been accepted as producing results capable of reliably helping to resolve questions regarding sanity and/or mental capacity in a legal sense. Id. at 77, 984 P.2d at 1031. Here the psychiatric community has not generally accepted either the clinical or actuarial method to identify past sexual offenders who will reoffend in the future. As Wolfe claimed an actuarial basis for conclusions actually derived from a clinical approach, the trial court erred in admitting his testimony as neither method has been generally accepted by the psychiatric community to produce reliable results. This testimony was not helpful to the trier of fact and was therefore inadmissible under ER 702 and incompetent under Frye.