Opinion ID: 48706
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: expert testimony on future dangerousness

Text: 93 Fields claims that introducing certain expert psychiatric testimony on the issue of future dangerousness constituted error.
94 Fields contends that the district court committed statutory error in admitting the expert testimony of a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Coons, during the punishment phase of trial. Our review is for abuse of discretion. See Hall, 152 F.3d at 402.
95 Prior to Dr. Coons testifying, Fields moved to examine him outside the presence of the jury to make a challenge pursuant to Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993). The court granted Fields's motion to examine Dr. Coons regarding the reliability of predicting future dangerousness. However, the court ultimately overruled Fields's objections and allowed the Government to call Dr. Coons to testify. 96 After Dr. Coons testified regarding his education and experience, the prosecutor posed a hypothetical, which consisted of the facts of the instant capital murder and some of Fields's background and criminal history. Based upon this hypothetical, the prosecutor asked Dr. Coons whether such an individual would constitute a future danger to others, including persons in a correctional facility. Dr. Coons responded that there was a probability of future violence.
97 On appeal, Fields makes clear that he is not arguing that psychiatric predictions of future dangerousness during the punishment phase are inadmissible per se. Instead, he states that the question is whether the evidence before the trial court on this record reflected a showing of reliability sufficient to support the admission as expert opinion of Dr. Coons's admittedly subjective and nonscientific prediction about Fields's future dangerousness.
98 We first address the argument that standards governing the admissibility of expert evidence at trial should also govern, either strictly or loosely, at capital sentencing. Federal Rule of Evidence 702 provides that expert evidence is admissible if, inter alia, it is the product of reliable principles and methods that are applied reliably to the facts of the case. In Daubert, the Supreme Court held that Rule 702 superseded the requirement of general acceptance for admission of scientific expert testimony. See 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469. Under Daubert, the district court conducts a `preliminary assessment of whether the reasoning or methodology underlying the testimony is scientifically valid and of whether that reasoning or methodology properly can be applied to the facts in issue.' United States v. Norris, 217 F.3d 262, 269 (5th Cir.2000) (quoting Daubert, 509 U.S. at 592-93, 113 S.Ct. 2786) (also citing FED.R.EVID. 702). Daubert provides an illustrative list of factors that may aid a court in evaluating reliability. Mathis v. Exxon, 302 F.3d 448, 460 (5th Cir.2002). 24 99 The amicus curiae in this case, the American Psychological Association, urges that we formally adopt the Daubert reliability factors for determining the admissibility of expert evidence in federal death penalty sentencing hearings. Similarly, Fields argues that a district court must apply Daubert or conduct a quasi- Daubert inquiry when deciding whether to admit proffered expert testimony at the punishment phase of a federal capital murder trial. Fields contends that although the Daubert test may not apply by its own terms under the FDPA, . . . the same principles necessarily inform the inquiry whether proffered evidence meets the applicable statutory requirements, as well as the overarching constitutional command of `heightened reliability.' We reject both positions. 100 No Circuit that we are aware of has applied Daubert to sentencing. 25 Moreover, as Fields acknowledges, the FDPA provides that evidence may be admitted regardless of its admissibility under the rules governing admission of evidence at criminal trials. 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c) (emphasis added). The FDPA by its terms does not fully implement the Federal Rules of Evidence at the punishment phase. Since Daubert 's holding was based on the Federal Rules of Evidence, it is not directly applicable. 101 That does not entirely answer the question as to whether some quasi- Daubert inquiry is required to satisfy the FDPA. Fields argues that other parts of the FDPA should inform our inquiry, specifically pointing to section 3593(c) that provides that Dr. Coons's testimony may be excluded if Fields has shown that its probative value is outweighed by the danger of creating unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, or misleading the jury. 26 We are somewhat sympathetic to the argument, but ultimately cannot read a provision into the FDPA that evaluating the probative value of expert testimony for sentencing purposes requires a form of Daubert hearing. Fields cannot point us to where such a requirement appears, even implicitly, in the text, history or logic of the FDPA. His statutory argument is unavailing and is better couched as a constitutional claim based in the Eighth and Fifth Amendments. Unfortunately for Fields, that constitutional argument is foreclosed and it is beyond our power to revisit it. See Part II.A.2.b.
102 Fields also argues more generally under section 3593(c) that, if Dr. Coons's testimony is shown to be unreliable, the evidence cannot assist the jury as it is plainly not `probative' of anything. We are not persuaded by this argument. 103 The Federal Death Penalty Act . . . erects very low barriers to the admission of evidence at capital sentencing hearings. Since the need to regulate the scope of testimony is less at the penalty phase than at the guilt phase of trial, parties may present evidence `as to any matter relevant to the sentence.' 27 United States v. Lee, 274 F.3d 485, 494 (8th Cir.2001) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c)). As noted above, the sole statutory restriction is that evidence may be excluded if it is more prejudicial than probative. 104 The seminal case regarding whether expert testimony is reliable and should be allowed with respect to future dangerousness predictions during the punishment phase of a capital murder trial is Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1983). Although Barefoot involved a constitutional challenge on collateral review and thus is not technically controlling, the Supreme Court's reasoning certainly must inform our analysis of this related issue. Ultimately, Barefoot 's sweeping logic requires us to reject Fields's general reliability argument. 105 In Barefoot, the petitioner argued that the testimony of two psychiatrists regarding his future dangerousness during the punishment phase of his state capital murder trial was unconstitutional. Barefoot broadly argued that psychiatrists (1) were incompetent to predict future dangerousness to an acceptable degree of reliability and (2) should not be permitted to testify regarding future dangerousness in response to a hypothetical or without examining the defendant. Id. at 896, 103 S.Ct. 3383. He also argued that his death sentence should be set aside because the testimony was unreliable under the particular circumstances of his case. The Supreme Court rejected all his arguments. Id. 106 With respect to the argument that no psychiatrist should testify as to the future dangerousness of a defendant, the Supreme Court explained that such a rule is contrary to our cases. Id. Because predicting future dangerousness is a constitutionally acceptable criterion for imposing the death penalty, and it is not impossible for even a lay person sensibly to arrive at that conclusion, it makes little sense, if any, to submit that psychiatrists, out of the entire universe of persons who might have an opinion on the issue, would know so little about the subject that they should not be permitted to testify. Id. at 896-97, 103 S.Ct. 3383 (citing Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976)); see also Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. at 473, 101 S.Ct. 1866 (reiterating the validity of Jurek and in no sense disapproving the use of psychiatric testimony bearing on the issue of future dangerousness). 107 Additionally, the Court reasoned that, to accept Barefoot's argument that expert testimony predicting future dangerousness is far too unreliable to be admissible would immediately call into question those other contexts in which predictions of future behavior are constantly made. Barefoot, 463 U.S. at 898, 103 S.Ct. 3383; see, e.g., O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 95 S.Ct. 2486, 45 L.Ed.2d 396 (1975) (explaining that expert psychiatrists and psychologists interpret facts that determine whether an individual is dangerous to himself or others and in need of civil commitment). The Court further explained that expert testimony regarding future dangerousness may be countered not only as erroneous in a particular case but also as generally so unreliable that it should be ignored. Barefoot, 463 U.S. at 898, 103 S.Ct. 3383. 108 Similarly, the Barefoot Court refused to accept the American Psychiatric Association's position in its amicus brief that such expert testimony should be barred as unreliable because it was in error most of the time. Id. at 901, 103 S.Ct. 3383. Noting that it had rejected the same view in Estelle v. Smith, the Court was not persuaded that such testimony is almost entirely unreliable and that the fact-finder and the adversary system will not be competent to uncover, recognize, and take due account of its shortcomings. Id. at 899, 103 S.Ct. 3383. 109 The Supreme Court also rejected Barefoot's argument that future dangerousness testimony should be based upon personal examination rather than hypotheticals. The Court recognized that expert testimony, including responses to hypotheticals, was routinely admitted if it assisted the factfinder. Id. at 903, 103 S.Ct. 3383. It further observed that neither the extant Federal Rules of Evidence nor state law lent support to the argument that the use of hypotheticals was unconstitutional. Id. at 904-05, 103 S.Ct. 3383. 110 Finally, Barefoot asserted that the use of hypotheticals in his case violated due process of law. Id. at 904, 103 S.Ct. 3383. The Supreme Court summarily found no constitutional violation. The Supreme Court stated that to agree with petitioner's basic position would seriously undermine and in effect overrule Jurek,  and it was not inclined to do so. Id. at 906, 103 S.Ct. 3383 (emphasis added). 28 111 As previously set forth, although we recognize that Barefoot involved a constitutional challenge, its reasoning informs us in assessing the instant case. Indeed, Fields's statutory argument is laced with references to the heightened reliability requirement under the Eighth Amendment. In addition, the Barefoot Court's pragmatic concerns about rejecting future dangerousness testimony apply equally here. Furthermore, the arguments urged today—though framed formally in statutory terms—are similar in substance to the ones rejected in Barefoot. For example, the amicus in Barefoot, like the amicus here, argued that the future dangerousness methods in issue could be in error most of the time. Likewise, both Fields and Barefoot challenged the experts' testimony based upon the failure to personally examine the defendant and the use of hypotheticals. The logic of Barefoot meets these challenges. 112 In the instant case, Dr. Coons's testimony was probative because Fields's jury was required to make an assessment of future dangerousness and because the jury could benefit from the opinion of a psychological expert on that matter. Moreover, as Barefoot noted, the adversarial system reduces any prejudicial unreliability in future dangerousness expert testimony because it can expose the flaws in such testimony. For these reasons, we reject the claim that Dr. Coons's testimony was so unreliable that the district court abused its discretion 29 by admitting it. 30
113 Fields also claims that the admission of Dr. Coons's testimony regarding future dangerousness during the punishment phase violated his rights under the Eighth and Fifth Amendments. Barefoot forecloses this claim. As to Fields's argument that Barefoot should be revisited, it is the Supreme Court's prerogative, not ours, to consider revisiting its precedent. See, e.g., Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Express, 490 U.S. 477, 484, 109 S.Ct. 1917, 104 L.Ed.2d 526 (1989). 114