Opinion ID: 783829
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Harris's Motion to Suppress

Text: 10 In June and July of 1984, the state trial court conducted a hearing on Harris's motion seeking suppression of oral, written, and videotaped statements Harris made to the police. Harris argued that the statements should be suppressed because his waiver of his right to an attorney was involuntary due to his low intelligence (and consequent inability to understand parts of the Miranda warnings he was given). 11 In support of this motion, Harris presented testimony from Dr. Roger P. Feldman, a psychiatrist. Dr. Feldman examined Harris for an hour in March 1984 and for a half hour in July 1984. Resp't-Appellant-Cross-Appellee's App. at 382 (hereafter App.). The first examination focused on Harris's competence to stand trial and whether [Dr. Feldman] felt there was any indication for insanity at the time of the alleged crime. Id. at 252. The second examination [focused] on [Harris's] understanding of his Miranda rights, specifically .... Id. During the course of these examinations, Dr. Feldman observed and spoke to Harris but did not conduct any formal diagnostic testing. Id. at 251-52. Dr. Feldman also reviewed Harris's school records from the time Harris was nine years old until he dropped out of high school. Id. at 249. Dr. Feldman did not review any records from the time period after Harris dropped out of high school, despite the fact that he was aware that Harris had been enrolled in various educational programs during that period. Id. at 288. 12 Dr. Feldman testified that Harris had borderline intellectual functioning, which is not considered a mental retardation diagnosis. Id. at 381. Instead, [i]t's considered somewhere in between normal and in between [sic] retarded, so that any individual with low-borderline intellectual functioning, even though their IQ may be between 75 and 80, still have [sic] the ability to function in life adequately. Id. Dr. Feldman opined, based on his conclusion that Harris was in the borderline intellectual functioning category, that Harris's IQ was in the range between seventy and eighty. Id. at 259-60. Dr. Feldman noted that, though he did not rely on the Hartford school department records in making his assessments, those records were consistent with his conclusion about Harris's I.Q. Id. 13 Dr. Feldman concluded that Harris was competent to stand trial in March 1984 because Harris understood at that time: (1) the nature of the charges; (2) the consequences if convicted; and (3) the role of the prosecuting attorney, of the judge, of the jury, if there was a jury, and what would happen if he was found guilty. Id. at 257. However, Dr. Feldman had the impression that, at the time of his confession, Harris did not understand that he was entitled to speak with an attorney before speaking to the police. Id. at 256. 14 On cross examination, the prosecutor challenged the validity of and the sufficiency of the evidentiary basis for a number of Dr. Feldman's conclusions. For example, on cross-examination Dr. Feldman acknowledged that he was aware that Harris attended ... rehabilitative programs [and] educational programs in some of the institutions he was in after he dropped out of high school, and that he knew that Harris's intellectual functioning had improved as a result of the training Harris had received since age seventeen. Id. at 288, 388. Nonetheless, Dr. Feldman did not attempt to obtain any records from any of those programs. Id. at 388. 15 The prosecutor also pointed out on cross-examination that Dr. Feldman initially classified Harris as being in the low-normal intellectual functioning category, which is the category above the borderline intellectual functioning category. Id. at 383, 386. Only after the second interview, when Harris's ability to understand the Miranda warnings was the focus, did Dr. Feldman's assessment of Harris's intellectual capability drop from low-normal to borderline intellectual functioning. However, as Dr. Feldman pointed out, between the first and second interviews Dr. Feldman had received Harris's Hartford school records, which indicated that Harris had severe learning disabilities. See id. at 387-88. 16 Finally, the prosecutor raised the possibility that Harris was malingering when Dr. Feldman interviewed him. Id. at 280. Although Dr. Feldman testified that he did not believe that Harris was malingering, he conceded that he had not conducted any tests to determine the accuracy of the information Harris provided. Id. at 280-81. Moreover, Dr. Feldman testified that the issue of Harris's understanding of the Miranda warnings did not come up until the second interview, at which time, according to Dr. Feldman: (1) Harris had discussed with his attorney in detail the meaning of the Miranda rights, id. at 254; (2) Harris had been researching or reading law books on this particular topic, id. at 287; and (3) Harris understood that it was in his best interest to have his statements to the police suppressed, id. 17