Opinion ID: 2058374
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Admissibility of Psychiatric Expert Testimony Based on Sodium Amytal Interview of Defendant

Text: During the guilt phase of the trial, defendant proffered the expert testimony of Dr. Robert Sadoff, a highly qualified forensic psychiatrist, concerning defendant's state of mind at the time of the homicides. Defense counsel advised the trial court that Dr. Sadoff's testimony was based in part on an interview while defendant was under the influence of an intravenously-administered barbiturate known as sodium amytal. The trial court conducted an extensive hearing pursuant to Evidence Rule 8 to determine the admissibility of the expert testimony. The Rule 8 hearing included testimony from Dr. Sadoff and two other highly qualified psychiatrists, Dr. Martin Orne for the State and Dr. Joseph DiGiacomo for the defendant. Following the hearing, the trial court ruled that Dr. Sadoff would not be permitted to give expert testimony in the guilt phase that was based on factual conclusions derived from defendant's statements during the sodium-amytal interview. However, the court ruled that Dr. Sadoff's opinion would be admissible if based on hypothetical facts consistent with evidence in the record. See Evid. R. 58. During the penalty phase of the case, defense counsel again sought to elicit Dr. Sadoff's expert testimony to support the existence of mitigating factors. The trial court ruled, as it did in the guilt phase, that Dr. Sadoff's expert testimony was also inadmissible in the penalty phase if based on facts gleaned from defendant's sodium-amytal interview. Although the trial court suggested that Dr. Sadoff could base his expert testimony in the penalty phase on facts already in evidence by virtue of defendant's guilt phase testimony, defense counsel advised the trial court that Dr. Sadoff would not testify because of the limitations imposed by the trial court's ruling. Defendant contends before us that the trial court's rulings in both the guilt and penalty phases were erroneous, requiring reversal of defendant's convictions for murder as well as reversal of his death sentence. The general principles that determine the admissibility of scientific-type evidence were recently summarized in Romano v. Kimmelman, 96 N.J. 66 (1984): In New Jersey, the results of scientific tests are admissible at a criminal trial only when they are shown to have sufficient scientific basis to produce uniform and reasonably reliable results and will contribute materially to the ascertainment of the truth. State v. Hurd, 86 N.J. 525, 536 (1981) (quoting State v. Cary, 49 N.J. 343, 352 (1967)). Scientific acceptability need not be predicated upon a unanimous belief or universal agreement in the total or absolute infallibility of the techniques, methodology or procedures that underlie the scientific evidence.    Reliability of such evidence must be demonstrated by showing that the scientific technique has gained general acceptance within the scientific community. State v. Johnson, 42 N.J. 146, 170-71 (1964). The fact that a possibility of error exists does not preclude a conclusion that a scientific device is reliable. This Court in Johnson noted: Practically every new scientific discovery has its detractors and unbelievers, but neither unanimity of opinion nor universal infallibility is required for judicial acceptance of generally recognized matters. Id. at 171 Once the showing of general acceptability has been made, courts will take judicial notice of the given instrument's reliability and will admit in evidence the results of tests from the instrument without requiring further proof. [ Id. at 80.] Thus, in determining the admissibility of evidence derived from scientific procedures, a court must first ascertain the extent to which the reliability of such procedures has attained general acceptance within the relevant scientific community. See Windmere, Inc. v. International Ins. Co., 105 N.J. 373, 377-79 (1987). Testimony by qualified experts is an acknowledged method for proving general acceptance of a scientific procedure. Id. at 379-82. The testimony at the Rule 8 hearing revealed substantial agreement among the three experts concerning the scientifically acceptable uses of testimony induced by sodium amytal. The witnesses agreed that sodium-amytal-induced interviews are not considered scientifically reliable for the purpose of ascertaining truth. See also State v. Sinnott, 24 N.J. 408, 421 (1957) (The general consensus appears to be that while the `truth sera' are valuable as a diagnostic aid because they tend to diminish the inhibitions of the subject being interviewed, they do not in any wise provoke a certainty of truth-telling on his part.). See generally Dession, Freedman, Donnelly & Redlich, Drug-Induced Revelation and Criminal Investigation, 62 Yale L.J. 315 (1953) (hereafter Dession, Drug-Induced Revelation ) (Thus the bare results of an interview under the influence of drugs should not, standing alone, be considered a valid and reliable indicator of the facts.). Id. at 342. The experts also expressed general agreement that sodium-amytal-induced interviews, conducted by trained psychiatrists, may be useful diagnostically as a component of a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation. See, e.g., Dession, Drug-Induced Revelation, supra, 62 Yale L.J. at 342. However, the expert witnesses had somewhat different views concerning the use of an interview induced by sodium amytal to determine a suspect's state of mind when committing a criminal act. Dr. Orne, the State's expert, expressed significant reservations about the use of sodium amytal to determine state of mind. Although Dr. Orne agreed that sodium-amytal interviews could be useful diagnostically and therapeutically, he testified that the drug was not appropriate for use in a forensic setting to determine state of mind: To the extent that the state of mind on an historical event involves making judgments between two or three different statements that the patient has made and you don't know which is true [sic]. You are using it as a truth-telling device and there is no use for that. Dr. Orne expressed the opinion, based on Dr. Sadoff's reports and a videotape of the sodium-amytal interview, that Dr. Sadoff relied on the interview to ascertain which of the defendant's versions of the homicides was truthful. Dr. Orne also noted that Dr. Sadoff's questioning of defendant during the amytal interview was leading and suggestive. Dr. DiGiacomo, defendant's expert, testified that a sodium-amytal interview could be useful in assessing state of mind, and observed that a trained psychiatrist could use the interview diagnostically to determine if a suspect was psychotic or suffered from a traumatic neurosis. Dr. DiGiacomo testified that his review of the viodeotaped interview caused him to believe that defendant was not totally in control when he killed Stacey, and also helped him to rule out psychosis or neurosis as a reason for the homicides. During questioning by the court, Dr. DiGiacomo conceded that he found troublesome that portion of Dr. Sadoff's report suggesting reliance on the amytal interview to determine the veracity and reliability of defendant's statements. Dr. Sadoff testified that he had interviewed defendant twice before conducting the interrogation with sodium amytal, the first time to determine competency to stand trial and the second time at the specific request of defendant's trial counsel. He explained that the significant differences between defendant's versions of the homicides on these two occasions, as well as defendant's accounts of his Vietnam combat experiences, prompted him to recommend an interview using sodium amytal. Dr. Sadoff testified that defendant's responses to leading questions about Vietnam during the amytal-induced interview persuaded him that defendant had not experienced a Vietnam flashback when he committed the homicides and enabled him to rule out post-Vietnam stress syndrome as an explanation for defendant's actions. Dr. Sadoff further testified to his conclusion, based on the amytal interview, that at the time of the homicides Pitts believed that Reynolds was causing Elizardo to engage in prostitution, and, enraged by that belief, defendant killed both Reynolds and Elizardo. Dr. Sadoff acknowledged that he had no opinion about whether Reynolds actually had enticed Elizardo into prostitution, but concluded, based on Pitts's statements while under the influence of sodium amytal, that Pitts's belief that that had occurred was truthful and caused him to commit the homicides. During questioning by the trial court, Dr. Sadoff acknowledged that he derived from the sodium-amytal interview the opinion that Pitts killed the victims in a state of rage because of Pitts's belief that Reynolds was pimping Stacey, but denied that he had used the amytal interview to ascertain the truth of any facts other than what Pitts believed at the time of the homicides. Dr. Sadoff also acknowledged, during questioning by the trial court, that he could render an opinion on defendant's state of mind without reliance on the amytal interview if the critical facts concerning defendant's belief were included in a hypothetical question propounded by counsel. At the conclusion of the Rule 8 hearing, the trial court held that Dr. Sadoff would not be permitted to rely on the sodium-amytal interview in expressing an opinion about defendant's state of mind when he killed Paul Reynolds and Stacey Elizardo. The court concluded that Dr. Sadoff had relied on sodium amytal to determine the truth or veracity of what the defendant believed. [4] Acknowledging agreement among the three expert witnesses that sodium-amytal interviews are not scientifically reliable for ascertaining truth, the trial court concluded that Dr. Sadoff's proposed use of the amytal interview was unreliable and therefore impermissible. The court specifically noted, however, that Dr. Sadoff would be permitted to render his expert opinion about defendant's state of mind if based on a hypothetical question consistent with the evidence in the case. Nevertheless, defendant's counsel made no further attempt to elicit Dr. Sadoff's testimony during the guilt phase of the case. In the guilt phase the trial court did not specifically decide the question whether defendant's expert could use the sodium-amytal interview diagnostically, as a basis for an expert opinion concerning defendant's state of mind at the time of the homicides: The distinction from this case is that there is an attempt on Dr. Sadoff's part to use it as a so-called diagnostic tool of some sort and on the basis of that to give an opinion to the jury concerning the state of mind of the defendant at the time these offenses were committed. So that raises a sub-issue as to whether or not the test is reliable enough to a psychiatrist using it to enable or allow him to give an opinion to a jury which is based upon the employment of that test. And I think this case doesn't even require this Court to make that determination in any broad or general terms, because the very limited question involved here is the use of the test by Dr. Sadoff and whether he used it to ascertain truth or whether he used it as some sort of a diagnostic tool having no relationship to truth or falsity, because it does appear in those situations where it is allowed, it is allowed because the expert psychiatrist who employs it does not employ it to determine the truth and his opinion as a result of its use is not based upon the truth or falsity of what was ascertained because it makes no difference to the opinion given. In this case, my very strong impression is Dr. Sadoff used it    for the purpose of ascertaining the belief of the defendant which is a fact and based upon that fact he has formulated his opinion, which is to say that he has relied on sodium amytal to decide the truth or veracity of what the defendant believed. However, the clear implication of the trial court's ruling was that a sodium-amytal interview could be used diagnostically as a basis for an expert's opinion, as our dissenting colleague suggests, post at 666, provided the content of the interview is not offered to prove the truth of the declarant's statements. [5] As noted above, supra at 621, at the conclusion of the penalty phase defense counsel again sought to elicit Dr. Sadoff's expert testimony on defendant's state of mind to support the mitigating factor set forth in N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(a): The defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance insufficient to constitute a defense to prosecution. The trial court ruled, as it did in the guilt phase, that Dr. Sadoff could not rely on the sodium-amytal interview to express an opinion about defendant's state of mind based on defendant's beliefs at the time of the homicides. The court observed, however, that defendant had testified in the guilt phase about the very same beliefs that Dr. Sadoff learned of during the amytal interview. Hence, the court emphasized that Dr. Sadoff could testify about defendant's state of mind in the penalty phase on the basis of defendant's direct testimony, but could not base his opinion on the truthfulness of statements made by defendant during the sodium-amytal interview. The trial court was asked specifically by defense counsel if his ruling precluded defendant's expert from offering any state-of-mind opinion based on the sodium-amytal interview. In response, the trial court acknowledged the diagnostic value of sodium-amytal interviews but declined to rule in a vacuum on the admissibility of such testimony. [6] Defense counsel did not call Dr. Sadoff to testify in the penalty phase of the case. We are fully in accord with the trial court's holding that precluded Dr. Sadoff from using the sodium-amytal-induced interview of defendant to provide expert opinion testimony on defendant's state of mind in the guilt phase of the trial. We find the trial court's assessment of Dr. Sadoff's Rule 8 testimony to be perceptive and accurate. Although Dr. Sadoff may have used defendant's amytal interview diagnostically to some extent, it is uncontrovertible that he relied on the interview to ascertain the truth of defendant's beliefs about the reasons he had committed the homicides. Thus, state-of-mind testimony by Dr. Sadoff, based on defendant's beliefs expressed during the amytal interview, would have exposed the jury to an expert opinion derived at least in part from a scientific procedure that has not attained general acceptance in the scientific community. On the two occasions that this Court has considered the question, we have concluded, based on the then-existing state of scientific knowledge, that testimony derived from a sodium-amytal-induced interview is inadmissible to prove the truth of the facts asserted. See State v. Levitt, 36 N.J. 266, 275 (1961); State v. Sinnott, supra, 24 N.J. at 421-23. Our rule is consistent with the views expressed by other courts that have addressed the issue. See United States v. Solomon, 753 F. 2d 1522, 1525-26 (9th Cir.1985); United States v. Swanson, 572 F. 2d 523, 527-28 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 849, 99 S.Ct. 152, 58 L.Ed. 2d 152 (1978); Chapa v. Chapa, 491 So. 2d 969, 970-71 (Ala. Civ. App. 1986); State v. Thomas, 79 Ariz. 158, 285 P. 2d 612, 613-14 (Sup.Ct. 1955), cert. denied, 350 U.S. 950, 76 S.Ct. 326, 100 L.Ed. 828 (1956); Fetters v. State, 436 A. 2d 796, 800 (Sup.Ct.Del. 1981); Harper v. State, 249 Ga. 519, 292 S.E. 2d 389, 395-96 (Sup.Ct.Ga. 1982); State v. Linn, 93 Idaho 430, 462 P. 2d 729, 732 (Sup.Ct. 1969); State v. Rosencrantz, 110 Idaho 124, 714 P. 2d 93, 99 (Idaho App. 1986); State v. Foerstel, 674 S.W. 2d 583, 593-94 (Mo. App. 1984); State v. Delk, 692 S.W. 2d 431, 439 (Tenn.Cr.App. 1985); Cain v. State, 549 S.W. 2d 707, 711-12 (Texas Cr.App.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 845, 98 S.Ct. 149, 54 L.Ed. 2d 111 (1977). The expert testimony adduced at the Rule 8 hearing indicated that the scientific community continues to view testimony induced by sodium amytal as unreliable to ascertain truth. Thus, the trial court's ruling excluding Dr. Sadoff's testimony in the guilt phase was consistent with our precedents, with the weight of authority throughout the country, and also with contemporary scientific knowledge as reflected by the expert testimony. Moreover, the trial court properly acknowledged that Dr. Sadoff could furnish expert testimony based on a hypothetical question, supported by other evidence in the record, that set forth the facts revealed to Dr. Sadoff during the sodium-amytal interview. We find no error in the trial court's disposition of this issue. Nor do we find error in the trial court's ruling that precluded Dr. Sadoff from furnishing expert testimony in the penalty phase that relied on factual conclusions derived from the sodium-amytal interview. In this connection, we first observe that the jury determined that the mitigating factor to which Dr. Sadoff's testimony was directed, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(a), [7] existed with respect to both homicides. We acknowledge, of course, that the weight the jury ascribed to that mitigating factor may have been affected by the exclusion of Dr. Sadoff's testimony. Defendant contends that the trial court's ruling concerning Dr. Sadoff's testimony in the penalty phase was error. Defendant relies on State v. Davis, 96 N.J. 611 (1984), and State v. Timmons, 192 N.J. Super. 141 (Law Div. 1983), in support of his assertion that a much less stringent standard should be applied to evidence proffered by a defendant in the penalty phase of a capital case than that which governs admissibility during the guilt phase. We note that since the trial of this case the legislature has dealt with the essence of defendant's contention, although not its specific application in this case, by amending the Capital Punishment Act to prescribe a more tolerant standard of admissibility for evidence offered by a defendant to support one or more mitigating factors. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3(c)(2)(b) now provides: (b) The admissibility of evidence offered by the State to establish any of the aggravating factors shall be governed by the rules governing the admission of evidence at criminal trials. The defendant may offer, without regard to the rules governing the admission of evidence at criminal trials, reliable evidence relevant to any of the mitigating factors. If the defendant produces evidence in mitigation which would not be admissible under the rules governing the admission of evidence at criminal trials, the State may rebut that evidence without regard to the rules governing the admission of evidence at criminal trials. [ L. 1985, c. 178 (approved and effective June 10, 1985).] Although we need not literally apply the provisions of N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3(c)(2)(b) to the issue before us, [8] the thrust of that amendatory provision was foreshadowed by our holding in State v. Davis, supra, 96 N.J. 611. In that case defendant pled guilty to murder and sought to offer in the penalty phase of the proceeding expert testimony from a professor of sociology, based on statistical data, that a person sharing defendant's statistical profile would be unlikely to commit further crimes if released from prison after serving the mandatory minimum thirty-year term. Although expressly declining to rule on the admissibility of the proposed testimony in respects other than relevancy, we held that the proffered expert testimony generally satisfies broad standards of relevancy and hence was admissible to establish a mitigating factor in the penalty phase. Id. at 621. In reaching that conclusion, we ascribe[d] to the Legislature full appreciation of the singular nature of the penalty phase of a capital proceeding and the ineluctable conclusion that doubts must be resolved in favor of admission when evidence of a mitigating factor is offered by the defendant. Id. at 620. We specifically noted that our determination was consistent with Senate Bill 950, the proposed amendment to N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3   . Id. at 621 n. 1. Our opinion in Davis also set forth broad guidelines for determining the admissibility of evidence to establish mitigating factors in the penalty phase of a capital case: We stress, however, that the conventional standards of competency, relating to both the expert's qualifications and the scientific reliability of the subject matter, are not to be strictly applied in this context  the penalty phase of a capital proceeding  in which the choice before the jury is between life and death. We have recognized that standards of proof may vary depending upon the litigational context. Evidential rules or standards of admissibility in the sense of the authenticity or competency of evidence may likewise be varied depending upon the purpose to be served by the evidence. With respect to the sentencing of a convicted criminal, as noted, we have been extraordinarily tolerant as to the subject and form of evidence to be considered in this most delicate kind of determination.    A lowered threshold of admissibility for evidence proffered in mitigation of the death penalty in the sentencing phase of a criminal proceeding is consistent with this recognition. In this setting, it would be incorrect for the court to apply the evidential prerequisites with the same strictness that is required in the guilt phase of the trial. When guilt is not the determinative issue, greater flexibility and latitude may be accorded a factfinder in his or her use of expert testimony. To the extent that evidence of the type sought to be proffered in the case at bar arguably may suffer shortcomings when measured by strict rules of evidential relevance and competence, such deficits will go to the weight of the testimony, properly relegating to the adversarial process the task of separating the wheat from the chaff. However, relaxed standards for admissibility are not to be equated with automatic admissibility. Judicial tolerance is not judicial license. For example, in this case the court may, upon a persuasive showing, consider the report, or any of its component parts, incomplete and therefore unhelpful. Arguably, the report could, upon countervailing proofs presented by the prosecutor through cross-examination or rebuttal evidence, be considered untrustworthy because of its failure to consider the educational background, employment history, familial status, criminal record, or some other important demographic factor relating to the potential for rehabilitation. It might also be considered flawed because of its use of, or its undifferentiated emphasis upon, statistical data based upon race, gender, or some other suspect characteristic. The court must retain discretion to exclude the evidence, in whole or in part, if its probative value is substantially outweighed by its unfounded or speculative character and the risk of confusion of the essential issues. [ Id. at 621-24 (citations and footnote omitted).] Application of the principles enunciated in Davis does not produce a simplistic resolution of the issue before us. As noted above, supra at 585-586, defendant's death sentence must be reversed on other grounds. Thus, the admissibility of Dr. Sadoff's penalty phase testimony is not of critical consequence to our disposition of this appeal. Nevertheless, its resolution is desirable here since the issue may present itself again on remand and may also recur in other capital proceedings. We consider two factors to be particularly decisive in our conclusion that the trial court properly excluded the proffered testimony of Dr. Sadoff. First, we read the record of the Rule 8 hearing as demonstrating a concession by Dr. Sadoff that he used the sodium-amytal interview to establish the truth of defendant's belief about the reason he murdered the victims, a use that appears to conflict with the prevailing opinions in the scientific community concerning the reliable uses of sodium-amytal-induced testimony. Second, the trial court offered defense counsel the opportunity to elicit Dr. Sadoff's expert opinion in the penalty phase on the basis of defendant's direct testimony in the guilt phase that was virtually identical to the statements elicited by Dr. Sadoff from defendant during the sodium-amytal interview. Although we acknowledge that Dr. Sadoff's opinion based on the defendant's statements during the amytal interview, corroborated by defendant's direct testimony, might have had a greater impact on the jury, we cannot criticize the trial court for balancing the potential impact of the proposed testimony against its apparent unreliability. We read the trial court's ruling as acknowledging Dr. Sadoff's right to testify to his expert opinion of defendant's state of mind based in part on the sodium-amytal interview, relying on defendant's trial testimony, rather than his statements during the amytal interview, to establish defendant's belief about why he killed Reynolds and Elizardo. In our view, the trial court's disposition of this issue was pragmatic, balanced, and thoroughly consistent with the relaxed standards of admissibility endorsed by our opinion in Davis. Hence, we find no error in the trial court's ruling. Had the state of the record not permitted the trial court to offer Dr. Sadoff the opportunity to testify based on defendant's guilt-phase testimony, application of the principles set forth in Davis would have suggested that Dr. Sadoff be permitted to testify about his opinion based on defendant's beliefs expressed in the amytal interview. In that event, the trial court would have been compelled to charge the jury concerning the unreliability of facts learned from a subject testifying under the influence of sodium amytal, and Dr. Sadoff's opinion could have been challenged on cross-examination and by rebuttal testimony. Total exclusion of penalty-phase evidence to support a mitigating factor should occur only in those circumstances in which a trial court is convinced that its admission, taking into account the balancing effects of cross-examination, rebuttal testimony, and curative instructions, would frustrate rather than advance society's interest in according a fair trial to a capital defendant.