Opinion ID: 772959
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Court-Ordered Psychiatric Examination

Text: 72 Allen asserts that the district court erred in ordering him to undergo a psychiatric examination by a government-selected psychiatrist without a full protective order and in allowing a prosecutor to violate the terms of the court's partial protective order. We find no constitutional error and therefore reject both claims. 73 There is no doubt that a district court has the authority to order a defendant who states that he will use evidence from his own psychiatric examination in the penalty phase of a trial to undergo a psychiatric examination by a government-selected psychiatrist before the start of the penalty phase. See United States v. Webster, 162 F.3d 308, 338-40 (5th Cir. 1998) (holding that a district court possesses the inherent power to order a psychiatric examination based on 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c), which requires that the government be given a fair opportunity to rebut any of defendant's mitigating evidence, and Fed.R.Crim.P. 12, which allows a court-ordered psychiatric examination during similar circumstances in the guilt phase of trials), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 829 (1999). See also Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454, 466 n.10, 472 (1981) (leaving open the possibility, without deciding it, that a defendant can be precluded from using psychiatric evidence during the penalty phase if he does not also consent to a prosecution-selected psychiatrist). The government must be able to put on a fair rebuttal to a defendant's mitigation evidence during sentencing. Here, the district court allowed one assistant prosecutor to begin evaluating the results of the government's psychiatric examination prior to the sentencing phase under an order to not divulge any of the results to the rest of the prosecution team until after the completion of the guilt phase. 11 This partial protective order is legally and constitutionally sufficient because, as explained by the Fifth Circuit, a defendant is adequately protected under the Constitution from impermissible early introduction of the fruits of a government psychiatric examination under a scheme wherein the defendant has the burden of producing some evidence of taint, and the government has the ultimate burden of persuading the court that the evidence is not tainted. United States v. Hall, 152 F.3d 381, 399 (5th Cir. 1998) (citing Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 183(1969)), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1117 (1999), abrogated on other grounds by United States v. Martinez-Salizar, 528 U.S. 304, 317 (2000). Additional prophylactic safeguards beyond this evidentiary framework, such as the sealing of exam results until after the completion of the guilt phase, as the court did in United States v. Beckford, 962 F. Supp. 748, 761 (E.D. Va. 1997), may avoid later litigation but are not constitutionally required. See Hall, 152 F.3d at 399. We therefore decline to adopt any such rigid prophylactic rule in the name of the Constitution and leave the matter to the discretion of district courts, subject only to our review for abuse of discretion, which we do not find present in this case. 74 As for Allen's allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, after a careful review of the record we find neither a breach of the district court's protective order nor any prejudice to Allen during the guilt phase had the prosecutor's comments been a breach. The government requested that the entire prosecution team be allowed to review the results of the court-ordered psychiatrist's interview with Allen before the end of the trial so that they could begin researching possible defenses Allen might raise. The Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) designated to receive the results of the court-ordered psychiatrist's interview with Allen made the following statement in open court, without the jury present, in response to Allen's assertion that the results should continue to be excluded from the entire prosecution team because they might be used against him during the guilt phase of the trial: 75 There really isn't anything in any of these reports that would prejudice the defendant if the prosecution team was made aware of them prior to the beginning of the penalty phase. In fact, Mr. Allen does not seem to discuss the offense or wasn't even asked about the offense with either one of the physicians that were chosen by the defense and there was no discussion of it with the court-appointed psychiatrist beyond Mr. Allen's maintaining that he wasn't there, so there isn't anything in these reports that could be exploited in the guilt phase of any type that I can see. 76 (Trial Tr., Vol. X at 2-3.) 77 Allen argues that the AUSA's disclosure, in the presence of other members of the prosecution team, of Allen's statement to the government psychiatrist that Allen was not present at the armed bank robbery is a violation of the court's protective order and a structural defect in the trial. We disagree. While the defense did express the view that the Chinese wall had been breached, it did not raise a formal objection at the time the comment was made, and the district court's failure to take any action sua sponte in response to the comment or to the allegation that its order had been violated, makes clear that it did not consider it to be a violation of the order. We see no violation either because the defendant had denied being present at the armed robbery as early as July 25, 1997, in his Notice of Intent to Rely Upon Defense of Alibis, so the prosecution team was already on notice from Allen himself that Allen might argue an I wasn't there defense. Thus, the AUSA's disclosure had little, if any, impact on the prosecution's presentation of evidence, and for that reason, even if the AUSA's disclosure was a technical violation of the court's protective order, Allen was certainly not prejudiced by the disclosure. 78 We also reject Allen's assertion that the disclosure effectively precluded or chilled him from exercising his right to testify at trial because he was afraid that all of the examination results had been disclosed to the entire prosecution team. The defendant could have taken the stand and still have protected his Fifth Amendment rights by alleging specific violations of the court's protective order if the government appeared to be improperly using information from the psychiatric examination. The decision was made to forego this protection, and on appeal Allen points to no specific improper uses of the results or contents of the psychiatric examination during the guilt phase of the trial. We therefore hold that the AUSA's disclosure does not, as Allen argues, rise to the level of a structural error (which he argues requires no showing of prejudice), nor do we find any abuse of discretion by the district court or prejudice to Allen with respect to the court-ordered psychiatric examination and partial protective order. 79