Opinion ID: 771148
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Exclusion of Expert's Statements

Text: 25 Next, Petitioner argues that the trial court violated his due process rights by excluding two statements by Dr. Krener, the defense expert who testified about Petitioner's mental condition. We are not persuaded. 26 On direct examination, Dr. Krener stated that Petitioner doesn't have a history of violence. The trial court struck that statement on the ground that it was in the nature of character evidence. On cross-examination, Dr. Krener stated that, if Petitioner's version of the events were untrue, then there should be another trail of corpses that I'm sure your team could have unearthed if he had done this before. Because what we know about violent people is that violence occurs recurrently in their lives. The trial court also struck that statement. 27 Assuming that the state trial court improperly excluded those statements, in a federal habeas proceeding we must assess whether the improper exclusion of evidence violated due process by examining the probative value of the evidence on the central issue; its reliability; whether it is capable of evaluation by the trier of fact; whether it is the sole evidence on the issue or merely cumulative; and whether it constitutes a major part of the attempted defense. Miller v. Stagner, 757 F.2d 988, 994 (9th Cir.), amended on denial of reh'g, 768 F.2d 1090 (9th Cir. 1985). 28 In this case, the exclusion of Dr. Krener's statements did not violate Petitioner's due process rights. Most importantly, the statements were unreliable and, indeed, were simply wrong. For example, at the time of trial, Petitioner had been charged with committing acts of violence while housed in the county jail awaiting trial. At Petitioner's first trial, a woman who had lived with him testified that he had physically assaulted her, without provocation, twice. Moreover, as the California Court of Appeal acknowledged in its unpublished opinion on Petitioner's direct appeal, the exclusion of Dr. Krener's testimony may in fact have helped Petitioner at the second trial because the prosecution otherwise would have been able to impeach her testimony with evidence of Petitioner's other violent acts. In view of the fact that Petitioner did have a history of violence, Dr. Krener's statements to the contrary were not reliable and, under a Miller analysis, Petitioner suffered no due process violation because of the exclusion of the statements.