Opinion ID: 1180863
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Testimony of Drs. French and Kaldor

Text: (52) Defendant argues counsel were incompetent for calling Drs. French and Kaldor, both court-appointed psychiatrists, because their testimony was inconsistent with the defense theory of diminished capacity. Defense counsel called Dr. French as their first witness and he admitted that when he interviewed defendant, DSM III had not yet been developed, and that he based his diagnosis on DSM II. Dr. French also admitted, the data base [I] have today is insufficient for [me] to make a diagnosis with medical certainty under the standards applicable today. The defense called Dr. Kaldor as their second witness, and he too admitted that DSM II was still in use when he evaluated defendant, and that his evaluation of defendant was possibly inappropriate. Counsel also alerted the jury to the fact that Dr. French spent only two hours with defendant and Dr. Kaldor only four hours, and argued that the interviews were tainted because police were present and defendant was shackled. Defense counsel then presented numerous lay witnesses before putting their own experts on the stand. During guilt phase closing argument, the prosecutor argued, I am sure [defense counsel] called [Dr. French and Dr. Kaldor] just to take the sting out of our case. They wanted to take the sting out of these witnesses before we put them on the witness stand. Defense counsel responded, [w]e had grave misgivings about the standard and the information that they had available to them and we put them on first to show you that fact and then to produce all of the information we have produced [subsequently] in the courtroom which could then be utilized by Drs. French and Kaldor in an opinion on rebuttal, which we [knew would take place]. In our view, defendant challenges trial tactics, not competence of counsel. It might well have worked against the defense if its own experts testified defendant was insane whereas the court-appointed experts in rebuttal testified he was sane. We find nothing improper with counsel's decision to call the court-appointed doctors as defense witnesses.