Opinion ID: 1450354
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Restricting Dr. Melekovets's Testimony Was Erroneous.

Text: The trial court refused to permit Dr. Melekovets to testify as to anything outside the parameters of his report, apparently because the trial court believed that RCr 7.24(3)(A)(i) required the parties to provide in discovery the theories underlying their experts' opinions. We disagree. The trial court's order of reciprocal discovery [2] essentially tracked the requirements of RCr 7.24(3)(A)(i), which requires a defendant to permit the Commonwealth to inspect, copy, or photograph any results or reports of physical or mental examinations and of scientific tests or experiments made in connection with the particular case. . . . We recently expressly rejected the notion that RCr 7.24 encompasses anything not explicitly covered by the rule by holding that RCr 7.24(3)(A)(i) applies only to results or reports of scientific tests or experiments. [3] Of course, we do not countenance any attempt to skirt what we hold to be the limited parameters of RCr 7.24; and the courts of the Commonwealth must not allow either the Commonwealth or defense counsel to play a cat and mouse game [4] with the rules governing discovery. [5] So the conclusion of the Court of Appeals that the trial court properly limited Dr. Melekovets's testimony (because Jones committed a discovery violation when he did not provide the Commonwealth with the entire underlying bases for Dr. Melekovets's testimony) is premised upon an impermissibly broad interpretation of RCr 7.24. Therefore, since Jones provided the Commonwealth all that was required in discovery concerning Dr. Melekovets's report, the trial court erred when it relied upon RCr 7.24 to limit Dr. Melekovets's testimony. Moreover, we reject the Commonwealth's argument that the trial court merely exercised its discretion to sanction a discovery violation when it limited Dr. Melekovets's testimony. We certainly do not approve of any party engaging in improper dilatory tactics during the discovery process. And we agree with the Commonwealth's unassailable contention that a trial court generally has broad discretion under RCr 7.24(9) to impose an appropriate sanction for a discovery violation. But we do not agree with the Commonwealth that the trial court's limitation of Dr. Melekovets's testimony was merely an example of a trial court exercising its discretion to sanction a discovery violation. Simply put, no party may be sanctioned for committing a nonexistent discovery violation. Having determined that nothing in the language of RCr 7.24 itself supports the trial court's decision to bar Dr. Melekovets's contested testimony, we also reject the Commonwealth's contention that our prior precedent compels us to find that the limitations imposed by the trial court were proper. Specifically, we hold that Barnett v. Commonwealth, [6] which the Court of Appeals relied upon, does not support the trial court's decision to limit Dr. Melekovets's testimony. Barnett was a case involving a murder for which there were no eyewitnesses. The Commonwealth contended that Barnett killed his wife late at night on an isolated road. In an effort to prove Barnett's guilt, the Commonwealth offered the testimony of an expert serologist who testified that traces of blood found on Barnett were consistent with Barnett having washed blood off his hands in a nearby puddle after stabbing his wife. The serologist's report did not contain his opinion regarding Barnett's purported hand washing. On appeal, we held that it was error for the trial court to permit the serologist to testify at trial about the hand washing because the serologist's report did not contain any opinions regarding hand washing. [7] The Court of Appeals held in the instant case that the discovery violation in Barnett is similar to the one in the case now before us. We disagree. In Barnett , defense counsel had no way to anticipate that the serologist would opine at trial that Barnett may have washed his hands in a nearby puddle after stabbing his wife because nothing in the serologist's report hinted at such a conclusion. Thus, as we have previously attempted to explain, Barnett stands for the principle that an expert may not testify to an additional, undisclosed principle or premise not readily deducible from the conclusions contained in that expert's report. [8] In other words, Barnett was based upon our desire to prevent a party from being deliberately surprised at trial. The situation in the case at hand is different. Dr. Melekovets's report indicated that he found no Y-chromosomes on the vaginal swab taken from M.G. Implicitly underlying that conclusion is the obvious fact that Dr. Melekovets fundamentally disagreed with the Commonwealth's DNA expert's conclusion that the male DNA found in the vaginal swab taken from M.G. matched Jones. After all, a lack of Y-chromosomes necessarily rules out a match for Jones's  or any other male's  DNA on the vaginal swab. In other words, it surely could not have come as a surprise to the Commonwealth that Dr. Melekovets would disagree with the conclusion and/or analytical process used by the Commonwealth's DNA expert in light of the conclusions contained in Dr. Melekovets's report. So we fail to perceive how permitting Dr. Melekovets to explain why he found fault with the Commonwealth's DNA expert's conclusion and/or methodology would have been impermissible sandbagging. [9] However, we must note that we reject Jones's contention that the Commonwealth's burden in a reciprocal discovery case is somehow greater than that borne by the defendant. We perceive nothing in the language of RCr 7.24 or Barnett , or its progeny, to support Jones's seeming contention that a defendant is entitled to the benefits of reciprocal discovery while simultaneously avoiding its concomitant burdens. And we frown equally upon any discovery violations, including sandbagging, by any party. Having determined that it was error for the trial court to limit Dr. Melekovets's testimony due to a nonexistent discovery violation, we now must address the Commonwealth's contention that any error in this regard was harmless. Under RCr 9.24, [n]o error in either the admission or the exclusion of evidence and no error or defect in any ruling or order, or in anything done or omitted by the court or by any of the parties, is ground for granting a new trial or for setting aside a verdict or for vacating, modifying or otherwise disturbing a judgment or order unless it appears to the court that the denial of such relief would be inconsistent with substantial justice. Indeed, since an accused has a constitutional right to present witnesses and evidence in his own defense, [10] we must determine whether the error in limiting Dr. Melekovets's testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. [11] The Commonwealth's DNA expert's report opines that Jones and M.G. were contributors to the DNA mixture contained on the vaginal swab taken from M.G. Furthermore, that report states that [t]he expected frequency of possible contributors to the mixed profile in the male fraction is fewer than 1 in 15,000,000 (1 in 15 million) among Caucasian, Black[,] and Hispanic Americans. So it was crucial for Jones to present testimony to counteract, or at least cast doubt upon, the Commonwealth's DNA expert's report. But Jones was unable to attempt fully to cast doubt upon the potentially devastating effect of the Commonwealth's DNA expert's conclusions and report because of the trial court's limitation on Dr. Melekovets's testimony. Because Jones's right to present a defense to the charges against him was substantially curtailed by the trial court's limitation upon Dr. Melekovets's testimony, we cannot find that error to be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. For the foregoing reasons, we hold that Jones's convictions for incest, rape, and sodomy must be reversed. But Jones's conviction for bribing a witness is affirmed because the improper limitation on Dr. Melekovets's testimony had no discernible bearing upon that conviction.