Opinion ID: 669740
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Assistance in the Evaluation, Preparation, and

Text: Presentation of the Defense 39 The trial court concluded that Starr's ability to subpoena the state examiners and to question them on the stand, coupled with the court's payment for their travel expenses from Little Rock, sufficed to provide Starr with the expert assistance to which he may have been entitled. We disagree. While due process admittedly does not give defendants the right to assistance from their experts of choice, it does give appropriate defendants the right to experts who will assist in evaluation, preparation, and presentation of the defense. Ake, 470 U.S. at 83, 105 S.Ct. at 1096. Before Ake, the ability to subpoena and question a neutral expert on whose examination both the state and the defense were relying may have satisfied due process. See United States ex rel. Smith v. Baldi, 344 U.S. 561, 568, 73 S.Ct. 391, 394-95, 97 L.Ed. 549 (1953) (due process satisfied when insanity defendant is examined by neutral psychiatrists on issue of insanity, and those experts testify). However, Ake expressly disavows the result in Smith and explains that the requirements of due process have fundamentally changed since that decision. Ake, 470 U.S. at 85, 105 S.Ct. at 1097. 40 Ake explains that Smith was decided before the Supreme Court had found that the Constitution afforded indigent defendants in state court the right to appointed counsel, much less appointed experts. Smith was also decided before expert testimony became so pivotal to litigation that, in appropriate cases, experts must be considered to be basic tools necessary for an adequate defense. Ake, 470 U.S. at 77, 79-82, 105 S.Ct. at 1093, 1094-96. Thus, the Court explains that its disagreement with Smith is fundamental. Id. at 85, 105 S.Ct. at 1097. 41 Like appointed counsel, experts appointed under Ake are to aid the defendant and function as a basic tool in his or her defense. Id. at 77, 105 S.Ct. at 1093. To so function, they must be available to assist in evaluation, preparation, and presentation of the defense. Id. at 83, 105 S.Ct. at 1096. Such availability and assistance requires more than permission to subpoena an expert and question him or her on the stand.