Opinion ID: 1135841
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mitigating value of expert testimony

Text: Hedlund claims the trial judge discounted expert psychological testimony offered in mitigation and thus violated his rights to due process and equal protection and against cruel and unusual punishment. We do not agree. Two psychiatric experts testified for Hedlund. The first was Dr. Holler, whose testimony focused on Hedlund's childhood abuse and the resultant psychoneurological effects. Dr. Holler's evaluation was based on a two-day interview with Hedlund, numerous tests, and background material about Hedlund's childhood. It is clear from the record that most, if not all, of Dr. Holler's testimony regarding Hedlund's childhood was based on reports he received from other sources and not from his own investigation. Dr. Holler characterized Hedlund as a follower but also said he could sometimes be a leader. He testified that Hedlund's ability to conform his conduct to the law was impaired but that Hedlund knew right from wrong. Based on reports of others, Dr. Holler also testified about Hedlund's difficult childhood and concluded that Hedlund suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, alcohol dependence, and a depressive disorder. Cross-examination, however, revealed that Dr. Holler made these diagnoses only after defense counsel told him they would be helpful. The testimony of Dr. Shaw, the second psychiatric expert, was based on a single interview with Hedlund in 1993, two years following his arrest. Dr. Shaw's testimony related to the effect of Hedlund's alleged alcoholism and Hedlund's judgment at the time of the murders. Based on Hedlund's self-reporting, Dr. Shaw believed that Hedlund would not have been present at the crime scenes had he not been drinking. However, Dr. Shaw could not tell whether the amount of alcohol Hedlund said he regularly consumed was, in fact, consumed on the nights of the murders, whether it was consumed during the other burglaries, or whether there was any consumption at all before the criminal acts. Dr. Shaw was also unable to give an opinion about whether Hedlund could discern right from wrong at the time of the crimes. Hedlund told Dr. Holler that at age nineteen he was drinking six to twelve and sometimes twenty beers, four or five nights a week. In a presentence report from an unrelated conviction in 1984, when he was nineteen years old, Hedlund stated that he had consumed alcohol in the past but had quit, and that he had quit so long ago that he could not remember when he had done so. Hedlund's character witnesses testified that Hedlund did not have a drinking problem, was not an alcoholic, and that his level of consumption was far below what Hedlund reported to the psychiatric experts. Hedlund correctly observes that the trial judge must consider any aspect of his character or record and any circumstance of the offense relevant to determining whether a sentence less severe than the death penalty is appropriate. In considering such material, however, the judge has broad discretion to evaluate expert mental health evidence and to determine the weight and credibility given to it. State v. Ramirez, 178 Ariz. 116, 131, 871 P.2d 237, 252, cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 435, 130 L.Ed.2d 347 (1994); State v. Milke, 177 Ariz. 118, 128, 865 P.2d 779, 789 (1993), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 114 S.Ct. 2726, 129 L.Ed.2d 849 (1994); State v. Smith, 123 Ariz. 231, 243, 599 P.2d 187, 199 (1979). This record does not establish that the judge failed to consider any of the expert psychological testimony, only that he found some of the factual evidence for the experts' opinions lacking in credibility. The judge therefore did not violate Hedlund's constitutional rights by discounting his experts' testimony.