Opinion ID: 1143715
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: issue i: error to exclude dr. merrell's testimony as to the state of mind of the defendant

Text: It is a well-settled rule of law that the expert witness may not testify to the truthfulness of the victim. Brown v. State, Wyo., 736 P.2d 1110, 1125 (1987), Urbigkit, J., dissenting, citing United States v. Azure, 801 F.2d 336 (8th Cir.1986). Equally, an expert `cannot testify as to the truthfulness of the defendant's version [of the incident].' Brown v. State, supra at 1115, quoting from Smith v. State, Wyo., 564 P.2d 1194, 1200 (1977). This defendant wanted to introduce expert testimony, not that the expert thought he was telling the truth which would invade the province of the jury, but that fear can certainly impair judgment. It seems inadequate simply to announce, We hold that fear and stress are emotions experienced by all mankind and are not distinctively related to some science. While fear and stress are emotions experienced by all of us, we do not all react equally to the same stimulus, in the same way or in the same fashion. Of particular interest in understanding the psychology of conflict as augmented by the introduction of firearms, is the work in 29 Law & Contemp.Probs. (1986), and particularly Stell, Close Encounters of the Lethal Kind: The Use of Deadly Force in Self-Defense, 29 Law & Contemp.Probs. 114 (1986). Unfortunately the 249-page treatise does not consider adequately the intrinsic-proclivity factor of availability motivation, particularly when infected by ingestion of alcohol. When an expert can place weight upon a particular stimulus or the action or reaction results of the stimuli, then the expert should aid the trier in his search for truth. This would allow the defendant the opportunity to develop an imperfect self-defense  that he honestly believed the actions he took were necessary even though assessable in hindsight as unreasonable. In the nature of psychological reaction, threat to wife or children might frequently cause more reaction than would threat to one's self. Protective love in many is a more pervasive stimulus than personal safety. To ignore that mental quality is to reject human history and deny well-established fact. As judges, we should not ignore what we know both as lawyers and as people, in denying expert analysis of the effect of stress-factor sensors causatively related to the malice differentiation between murder and manslaughter. [3] When a reaction is deemed self-defense, the reaction is said justified; when the reaction is heat of passion, the reaction is said partially excused. Respected thinkers have devoted exhaustive consideration to their analyses of human understanding to justification versus excuse; the significance of justification; defense of justification; reasonable-men criteria; passion and emotion as dethroning reason; self-defense re-examined; the adequacy of provocation; interpretative construction; and imperfect self-defense. What is discerned through synonym versus antonym; similarity and differentiation; desert and detriment; and rule and standard, is that the relationship of intended result to assessed retribution is both clouded in fact and confused in conception. If scholars so disagree, how can the trial process, on the basis that we all experience fear and stress, reject expert assistance on the totality of causation and character while seeking justice? Levenbook, Responsibility and the Normative Order Assumption, 49 Law Contemp. Probs. (1986); McEwen, The Defense of Justification and Its Use by the Protestor: A Focus on Pennsylvania, 91 Dick.L.Rev. 1 (1986); Morawetz, Reconstructing the Criminal Defenses: The Significance of Justification, 77 J.Crim.Law and Criminology 277 (1986); Donovan and Wildman, Is the Reasonable Man obsolete? A Critical Perspective on Self-Defense and Provocation, 14 Loy.L.A.L.Rev. 435 (1981); Perkins, Self-Defense Re-Examined, 1 U.C.L.A.L.Rev. 133 (1953); Dressler, Rethinking Heat of Passion: A Defense in Search of a Rationale, 73 J.Crim.Law and Criminality 421 (1982); Kelman, Interpretive Construction in the Substantive Criminal Law, 33 Stan.L.Rev. 591 (1981); Note, Manslaughter and the Adequacy of Provocation: The Reasonableness of the Reasonable Man, 106 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1021 (1958); Dressler, New Thoughts About the Concept of Justification in the Criminal Law: A Critique of Fletcher's Thinking and Rethinking, 32 U.C.L.A.L.Rev. 61 (1984); Fletcher, The Individualization of Excusing Conditions, 47 S.Cal.L.Rev. 1269 (1974); Note, Partially Determined Imperfect Self-Defense: The Battered Wife Kills and Tells Why, 34 Stan.L.Rev. 615 (1982). The engine of this dissent is driven by the treatment given this expert's testimony when contrasted to the treatment given the complaining expert witness in Brown v. State, supra. In Brown, expert testimony was allowed to help convict. Here, expert testimony to challenge for acquittal is denied. In Brown v. State, supra, the expert testimony was that the complaining witness took a psychological test which showed she had been sexually abused and was truthful. One struggles to capture the logic necessary to reveal how this is not expert testimony vouching for the truthfulness of the complaining witness, except that the court said that Smith v. State, supra, 564 P.2d at 1200 stood for the notion that an expert cannot testify as to the truthfulness of the defendant's version [of the incident] and that principle was not violated. To allow expert testimony which infringes on the province of the jury when that testimony is used to convict, and to disallow expert testimony which might develop an imperfect self-defense when that testimony is used to help acquit, points to an inconsistent treatment by this court which is constitutionally (due process) and logically (fairness) unacceptable.