Opinion ID: 4535549
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Unreliable Experts

Text: Nevertheless, it might seem that the Ohio courts rendered a reasonable decision because they relied on the opinions of two psychological experts who found that Hill did not exhibit significant adaptive deficits. According to the Ohio Court of Appeals, the experts and the record provided “competent and credible evidence to support the trial court’s conclusion that Hill does not meet the second criterion for mental retardation.” Hill, 894 N.E.2d at 126. But both experts, at the trial court’s direction, ignored evidence of adaptive deficiencies from Hill’s school years, or set it aside as irrelevant to the task at hand. Anecdotal evidence, such as comments and records from schoolteachers and others who have interacted with or evaluated the subject, is key to the adaptive-deficits analysis. See Hill, 894 N.E.2d at 124–25 (discussing anecdotal evidence); R. 97 [disc 1] (Hammer Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Pages 383–84) (stating that the psychological profession values “collateral information”); R. 97 [disc 1] (Olley Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 696) (stating the importance of “drawing information from many different sources of functioning in every day life under every day circumstances”). Two experts testified in Hill’s Atkins proceedings that Hill did not display significant adaptive limitations. State v. Hill, No. 85-CR-317, at 79–80 (Ohio Ct. of Common Pleas Feb. 15, 2006) (unreported) [R. 97 [disc 1] (Suppl. App.) (Pages 3477–78)]. The state trial court relied upon their opinions to conclude that Hill had failed to demonstrate significant adaptive deficits. Id. at 81.8 All three experts, including Dr. Hammer (Hill’s expert), found that Hill malingered or tried to “fake bad” on the adaptive skills tests given to him in 2004. State v. Hill, No. 85-CR-317, at 53 (Ohio Ct. of Common Pleas Feb. 15, 2006) (unreported) [R. 97 [disc 1] (Suppl. App.) (Pages 3451, 3479)]. Drs. Olley (the state’s expert) and Huntsman (the trial court’s expert) heavily weighed the fact that Hill malingered in coming to their decision that Hill 8 We have previously denied Atkins relief in an AEDPA case arising out of Ohio where, as here, two of the three mental-health experts testified that the petitioner was not intellectually disabled. O'Neal v. Bagley, 743 F.3d 1010, 1023 (6th Cir. 2013) (“With expert testimony split, as it often is, the state court chose to credit Dr. Chiappone and Dr. Nelson over Dr. Tureen, and we cannot say from this vantage that it was unreasonable to do so.”). However, O’Neal is distinguishable on its facts, and Hill’s claim for Atkins relief is much stronger than the petitioner’s claim in O’Neal. For example, in O’Neal there was insufficient evidence to prove that the petitioner met the first prong in demonstrating “significantly subaverage intellectual functioning.” Id. at 1022. Here, by contrast, Hill’s IQ is so low that the Warden concedes that Hill satisfies the first prong. Additionally, O’Neal’s claim for Atkins relief also failed because his adaptive deficits may well have been better explained by his drug abuse and personality disorder rather than organic mental illness. Id. at 1022–23. Nos. 99-4317/14-3718 Hill v. Anderson Page 16 was not, at present, intellectually disabled. See See R. 97 [disc 1] (Olley Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 781); R. 97 [disc 1] (Huntsman Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Pages 1050–51). But see R. 97 [disc 1] (Hammer Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 211) (stating that a person with intellectual disability can still lie, manipulate, and cheat). Drs. Olley and Huntsman also emphasized the sophistication of Hill’s crimes and his interactions with prison, law-enforcement, and court officials. See R. 97 [disc 1] (Olley Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Pages 726–731, 737–50, 770–75, 779–82.); R. 97 [disc 1] (Huntsman Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Pages 1024–35, 1040–55). Dr. Hammer, on the other hand, based his diagnosis on all types of anecdotal evidence, including Hill’s records from school, and concluded that Hill satisfied all three prongs for a diagnosis of intellectual disability. See R. 97 [disc 1] (Hammer Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Pages 383–84) (“My opinion is that [Hill] falls within the high end of the mild retardation range.”); id. at 156; see also id. at 190 (describing mild intellectual disability as “significant” or “severe” impairment in the ability to function). Dr. Olley (the state’s expert) stated that Hill’s memory was very good in court on April 15, 2004, when he provided details of events. R. 97 [disc 1] (Olley Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 744). Dr. Olley also stated, based on an interview with Hill, that Hill was able “to express a complex explanation of the crime in order to support his claim of innocence.” R. 97 [disc 1] (Suppl. App.) (Page 1125). Although Dr. Olley admitted that Hill’s case was a “close call,” R. 97 [disc 1] (Olley Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 861), he nevertheless concluded that Hill’s “way of presenting himself,” both in his police interrogation and before the court, was inconsistent with an intellectual-disability diagnosis, id. at 718–19, 726–27. Dr. Olley said that he had never heard of an intellectually disabled inmate calling the media to arrange an interview, as Hill did in this case by reaching out to the Tribune Chronicle. Id. at 763. Dr. Olley noted that Hill was able to tell an elaborate “conspiracy” theory about the events leading to his capital trial for Fife’s murder, which echoed a “very similar” soliloquy he made before the trial court on April 15, 2004. Id. at 770–72. Dr. Olley characterized this soliloquy as “long,” “rambling,” and ultimately implausible—but he testified that he was nonetheless “struck” by Hill’s “sophisticated memory and reasoning.” Id. at 771–72. Nos. 99-4317/14-3718 Hill v. Anderson Page 17 Dr. Huntsman (the trial court’s expert)’s report similarly focused on Hill’s “remarkable memory for the history of his case,” his detailed and “very complex explanation for how Raymond Fife came to be killed,” as well as the “competencies” observed by staff members in prison. R. 97 [disc 1] (Suppl. App.) (Page 1141). Dr. Huntsman described Hill’s story as “bouncing around in time,” and she initially “couldn’t keep track of what [they] were talking about.” R. 97 [disc 1] (Huntsman Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Pages 1021, 1025). She characterized the conspiracy story as “remarkable and not likely, not very plausible.” Id. Still, despite the story’s apparent lack of “logic,” Dr. Huntsman noted “the degree of organization, the degree of complexity[,] and the degree of memory that he displayed as [they] talked.” Id. at 1025–26. She testified that it was not the story Hill told, but his “process of telling the story”—which demonstrated complexity, “sophistication,” a noteworthy vocabulary, and a “general ability to communicate”—that led to her conclusion that he was not intellectually disabled. Id. at 1190. In the end, Drs. Olley and Huntsman each opined that Hill was “borderline intellectual functioning” as defined in the DSM-IV. See R. 97 [disc 1] (Olley Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 936); R. 97 [disc 1] (Huntsman Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 1044); id. at 1049 (stating that “what makes me say that I believe that in my opinion he falls within the borderline range of intellectual functioning has to do with his adaptive behavior”). Dr. Olley described borderline intellectual functioning as “no mental retardation but it is the . . . functioning that is . . . between one standard deviation below the mean and two standard deviations below the mean,” i.e., an IQ range between “71 to 85.” R. 97 [disc 1] (Olley Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 936). Drs. Olley and Huntsman came to this conclusion even though people at the lower end of borderline intellectual functioning and the higher end of intellectual disability are “going to be quite similar . . . in some regards,” R. 97 [disc 1] (Hammer Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 465), including in their ability to create a “script” involving various people and events, id. at 537–38. In Dr. Hammer (Hill’s expert)’s opinion, Hill’s behavior was not inconsistent with that of a person with mild intellectual disability because those persons often attempt to don a “cloak of competence.” Id. at 191–92. “[M]any people with mild [intellectual disability],” he explained, “are quite aware of their deficits in learning and functioning and are somewhat worried that other people will find that also. So they oftentimes will develop certain skill areas that they can hold Nos. 99-4317/14-3718 Hill v. Anderson Page 18 out as indicating that they have a competence in a certain area and, therefore, are trying to mask . . . what their deficits actually are.” Id. This frequently involves “learning sort of . . . scripts or scenarios that they can kind of pull out.” Id. at 192–93. The trial court, which adopted the opinions of Drs. Olley and Huntsman, but made no reference to Dr. Hammer’s cloak of competence discussion in its opinion, apparently did not afford this concept much weight. Drs. Olley and Huntsman also placed significant weight on the testimony of prison officials about Hill’s recent behavior in the prison environment. These officials considered Hill “average” in intelligence compared to other death row inmates. “They testified that Hill interacted with the other inmates, played games, maintained a prison job, kept a record of the money in his commissary account, and obeyed prison rules.” Hill, 2014 WL 2890416, at . One official said that Hill was feigning intellectual disability for his Atkins claim, and another said that Hill’s hygiene was “poor but not terrible.” Id. (quoting Hill, 894 N.E.2d at 125). As the district court noted, all of the experts conceded that relying on Hill’s behavior in prison to assess adaptive skills is problematic because “death row is a segregated, highly structured and regulated environment.” Hill, 2014 WL 2890416, at .9 Evidence of adaptive functioning in this kind of controlled setting is of limited value because inmates do not have the same opportunities to acquire new skills or show weaknesses in existing skills. Assessing Hill’s adaptive deficits as an adult is particularly challenging given the absence of any reliable testing to measure Hill’s adaptive functioning and the lack of reliable evidence of how Hill would have functioned as an adult in general society as he has been incarcerated for all but six months of his adult life. Given the lack of evidence regarding Hill’s likely adaptive performance as an adult in the general community, the experts should have considered all available evidence. 9 The medical literature available in 2008 prohibited the assessment of adaptive skills in atypical environments like prison. For example, the 2002 American Association on Mental Retardation says “[l]imitations in present functioning must be considered within the context of community environments typical of the individual’s age peers and culture.” AAMR-10, at 8. It continues: “This means that the standards against which the individual’s functioning must be measured are typical community-based environments, not environments that are isolated or segregated by ability.” Id. Nos. 99-4317/14-3718 Hill v. Anderson Page 19 Drs. Olley and Huntsman leaned heavily on these prison officials’ testimony rather than treating them with the degree of skepticism that they deserved. As the district court noted, the weight of the testimony from various death-row prison officials was limited by their potential bias against the inmates they were charged with guarding, as well as the shortcomings affecting lay opinions about intellectual disability generally. Id. at –43. And many of the prison officials’ statements were “rife with contradictions, with themselves and each other.” Id. at . These flaws might be forgivable under AEDPA deference, but there is one problem with Drs. Olley’s and Huntsman’s testimony that we cannot overlook: neither of them grappled with the extensive past evidence of Hill’s intellectual disability. Both experts, instead, assessed Hill’s adaptive skills “as they existed at the time of the hearing”—even though intellectual disability is a static condition. Hill, No. 4:96-cv-00795, 2014 WL 2890416, at ; see Hill, 881 F.3d at 489, n.7 (citing Hill, 894 N.E.2d at 113); Williams, 792 F.3d at 617–19; R. 97 [disc 1] (Suppl. App.) (Page 1125) (Dr. Olley reporting that “[t]he available information on Mr. Hill’s current functioning does not allow a diagnosis of mental retardation . . . .”) (emphasis added). At the State’s urging, the trial court ruled that it would focus the Atkins inquiry on Hill’s current functioning, but noted that it would not preclude historical evidence from coming in. R. 97 [disc 1] (Suppl. App.) (Pages 175–81, 217–23, 247–50). As a result, the opinions of Drs. Olley and Huntsman, like the Ohio courts’ own assessments, lack a credible foundation. Dr. Olley recognized the importance of anecdotal evidence when he relied on testimony from prison guards to assess Hill’s adaptive skills. But when it came to past anecdotal evidence of Hill’s adaptive deficits, Dr. Olley dismissed it as evidence of low academic skills only. R. 97 [disc 1] (Olley Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 783). Acknowledging that Hill’s school teachers thought he was intellectually disabled, Dr. Olley said that he could not say the same because “[t]he information is simply not available.” Id. That is simply not true. As for Dr. Huntsman, she, too, did not give much thought to the past anecdotal evidence of Hill’s adaptive deficits. She stated that she was retained to decide “whether [Hill] is now a mentally retarded individual.” R. 97 [disc 1] (Huntsman Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 1052). When prompted for her opinion of Hill’s school records, she stated that these records were not as reliable as the court-conducted tests because teachers’ assessments “were being done for a very Nos. 99-4317/14-3718 Hill v. Anderson Page 20 different purpose.” Id. at 1046. Never mind that the Ohio Supreme Court had already decided in White that school records are relevant for an adaptive-deficits analysis. White, 885 N.E.2d at 916. Dr. Huntsman also threw out a guess that Hill had not tried his hardest in school. R. 97 [disc 1] (Huntsman Test., Atkins Hr’g Tr.) (Page 1048). Having disregarded much of the past anecdotal evidence, she stated that Hill “probably” was not intellectually disabled at the time of the offense. Id. at 1052 (“I think that the only thing that I’ve said today that I didn’t say previously in my report, because I wasn’t asked to address it in my report, is that my opinion is that he was probably not retarded at the time of the offense.”). Even though Drs. Olley and Huntsman conceded that this was a close case, they made no real attempt to reconcile their outcome with Hill’s past diagnoses of intellectual disability—and in fact, they were effectively told not to do so. Rather than grapple with the extensive record of Hill’s intellectual disability, the state trial court made its findings based on Hill’s scattered and scripted conspiracy story of the Fife murder, his demeanor in interacting with law enforcement and the legal system, and the supposed sophistication of his crimes. State v. Hill, No. 85-CR-317, at 73–77 (Ohio Ct. of Common Pleas Feb. 15, 2006) (unreported) [R. 97 [disc 1] (Suppl. App.) (Pages 3477–78)]. Those “adaptive strengths” convinced the state trial court that Hill could not be intellectually disabled because he had “remarkable” communication and vocabulary skills and was selfdirected. Id. at 74. As we previously stated, “there is substantial evidence in the record to contradict” these findings. See Hill, 881 F.3d at 493. But having set their gaze on Hill’s interactions with prison, court, and police officials, Drs. Olley and Huntsman said next to nothing about the substantial evidence in the record both from his time in school and in prison that Hill was easily led, struggled to communicate, and struggled to read. As we held in Williams, Atkins and Lott recognized that intellectual disability presents itself in childhood and is a permanent condition. See Williams, 792 F.3d at 617–19. Under Atkins/Lott, courts cannot limit their focus to contemporary accounts while discounting past evidence of intellectual disability. Nos. 99-4317/14-3718 Hill v. Anderson Page 21