Opinion ID: 1158206
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Expert Testimony is Inadmissible as to Credibility.

Text: While PTSD testimony may be offered to show that the victim suffers from symptoms that are consistent with sexual abuse, it may not be offered to establish that the alleged victim is telling the truth; that is for the jury to decide. We have held before that expert testimony is admissible even if it touches upon an ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact. See State v. Martin, 101 N.M. 595, 605, 686 P.2d 937, 947 (1984). Rule 704, however, does not sanction the practice in all cases of calling an expert witness to tell the jury that a witness is telling the truth. Each of the experts in both of these cases testified that while they try to determine if the victim's story is inherently consistent, that does not translate into a determination of whether the victim is telling the truth. One of the experts characterized psychology as having no truth-telling machine. The experts testified that it was not their function to pass on the credibility of complainants in the legal sense. Accordingly, we expressly prohibit direct testimony regarding the credibility or truthfulness of the alleged victim of sexual abuse. See Townsend v. State, 103 Nev. 113, 734 P.2d 705, 709 (1987) (holding that it is improper to directly characterize alleged victim's testimony as either truthful or false). In reaching this conclusion, we are particularly impressed with the analysis of the Supreme Court of Arizona, which stated: We are aware that Rule 704 permits testimony in the form of an opinion or inference even though such testimony embraces an ultimate issue to be decided by the jury. However, Rule 704 was not intended to permit experts to tell the jury what result to reach. When the only evidence consists of the victim's accusation and the defendant's denial, expert testimony on the question of who to believe is nothing more than advice to jurors on how to decide the case. Such testimony was not legitimized by Rule 704, and is not admissible under Rule 702. Moran, 151 Ariz. at 383, 728 P.2d at 253 (citations omitted); see also State v. Brodniak, 221 Mont. 212, 718 P.2d 322, 329 (1986). The quoted language from Arizona's Rule 704 in the above block is identical to New Mexico's Rule 704. Both of the State's experts in Marquez testified that it was not their function to determine if the complainant was telling the truth, but then both testified in effect that the complainant was telling the truth and that she said she was abused by her father. What they meant, no doubt, was that the complainant's story was highly consistent within the psychological meaning of that term. Being highly consistent, however, was incorrectly translated into the legal conclusion that the complainant was not fabricating her story. This is a good example of the cautionary note in DSM III-R about using psychological terms in the courtroom being ignored.