Opinion ID: 48706
Heading Depth: 6
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Barefoot v. Estelle's Logic Undermines Fields's General Reliability Argument

Text: 102 Fields also argues more generally under section 3593(c) that, if Dr. Coons's testimony is shown to be unreliable, the evidence cannot assist the jury as it is plainly not `probative' of anything. We are not persuaded by this argument. 103 The Federal Death Penalty Act . . . erects very low barriers to the admission of evidence at capital sentencing hearings. Since the need to regulate the scope of testimony is less at the penalty phase than at the guilt phase of trial, parties may present evidence `as to any matter relevant to the sentence.' 27 United States v. Lee, 274 F.3d 485, 494 (8th Cir.2001) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c)). As noted above, the sole statutory restriction is that evidence may be excluded if it is more prejudicial than probative. 104 The seminal case regarding whether expert testimony is reliable and should be allowed with respect to future dangerousness predictions during the punishment phase of a capital murder trial is Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1983). Although Barefoot involved a constitutional challenge on collateral review and thus is not technically controlling, the Supreme Court's reasoning certainly must inform our analysis of this related issue. Ultimately, Barefoot 's sweeping logic requires us to reject Fields's general reliability argument. 105 In Barefoot, the petitioner argued that the testimony of two psychiatrists regarding his future dangerousness during the punishment phase of his state capital murder trial was unconstitutional. Barefoot broadly argued that psychiatrists (1) were incompetent to predict future dangerousness to an acceptable degree of reliability and (2) should not be permitted to testify regarding future dangerousness in response to a hypothetical or without examining the defendant. Id. at 896, 103 S.Ct. 3383. He also argued that his death sentence should be set aside because the testimony was unreliable under the particular circumstances of his case. The Supreme Court rejected all his arguments. Id. 106 With respect to the argument that no psychiatrist should testify as to the future dangerousness of a defendant, the Supreme Court explained that such a rule is contrary to our cases. Id. Because predicting future dangerousness is a constitutionally acceptable criterion for imposing the death penalty, and it is not impossible for even a lay person sensibly to arrive at that conclusion, it makes little sense, if any, to submit that psychiatrists, out of the entire universe of persons who might have an opinion on the issue, would know so little about the subject that they should not be permitted to testify. Id. at 896-97, 103 S.Ct. 3383 (citing Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976)); see also Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. at 473, 101 S.Ct. 1866 (reiterating the validity of Jurek and in no sense disapproving the use of psychiatric testimony bearing on the issue of future dangerousness). 107 Additionally, the Court reasoned that, to accept Barefoot's argument that expert testimony predicting future dangerousness is far too unreliable to be admissible would immediately call into question those other contexts in which predictions of future behavior are constantly made. Barefoot, 463 U.S. at 898, 103 S.Ct. 3383; see, e.g., O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 95 S.Ct. 2486, 45 L.Ed.2d 396 (1975) (explaining that expert psychiatrists and psychologists interpret facts that determine whether an individual is dangerous to himself or others and in need of civil commitment). The Court further explained that expert testimony regarding future dangerousness may be countered not only as erroneous in a particular case but also as generally so unreliable that it should be ignored. Barefoot, 463 U.S. at 898, 103 S.Ct. 3383. 108 Similarly, the Barefoot Court refused to accept the American Psychiatric Association's position in its amicus brief that such expert testimony should be barred as unreliable because it was in error most of the time. Id. at 901, 103 S.Ct. 3383. Noting that it had rejected the same view in Estelle v. Smith, the Court was not persuaded that such testimony is almost entirely unreliable and that the fact-finder and the adversary system will not be competent to uncover, recognize, and take due account of its shortcomings. Id. at 899, 103 S.Ct. 3383. 109 The Supreme Court also rejected Barefoot's argument that future dangerousness testimony should be based upon personal examination rather than hypotheticals. The Court recognized that expert testimony, including responses to hypotheticals, was routinely admitted if it assisted the factfinder. Id. at 903, 103 S.Ct. 3383. It further observed that neither the extant Federal Rules of Evidence nor state law lent support to the argument that the use of hypotheticals was unconstitutional. Id. at 904-05, 103 S.Ct. 3383. 110 Finally, Barefoot asserted that the use of hypotheticals in his case violated due process of law. Id. at 904, 103 S.Ct. 3383. The Supreme Court summarily found no constitutional violation. The Supreme Court stated that to agree with petitioner's basic position would seriously undermine and in effect overrule Jurek,  and it was not inclined to do so. Id. at 906, 103 S.Ct. 3383 (emphasis added). 28 111 As previously set forth, although we recognize that Barefoot involved a constitutional challenge, its reasoning informs us in assessing the instant case. Indeed, Fields's statutory argument is laced with references to the heightened reliability requirement under the Eighth Amendment. In addition, the Barefoot Court's pragmatic concerns about rejecting future dangerousness testimony apply equally here. Furthermore, the arguments urged today—though framed formally in statutory terms—are similar in substance to the ones rejected in Barefoot. For example, the amicus in Barefoot, like the amicus here, argued that the future dangerousness methods in issue could be in error most of the time. Likewise, both Fields and Barefoot challenged the experts' testimony based upon the failure to personally examine the defendant and the use of hypotheticals. The logic of Barefoot meets these challenges. 112 In the instant case, Dr. Coons's testimony was probative because Fields's jury was required to make an assessment of future dangerousness and because the jury could benefit from the opinion of a psychological expert on that matter. Moreover, as Barefoot noted, the adversarial system reduces any prejudicial unreliability in future dangerousness expert testimony because it can expose the flaws in such testimony. For these reasons, we reject the claim that Dr. Coons's testimony was so unreliable that the district court abused its discretion 29 by admitting it. 30