Opinion ID: 1943871
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jury Instruction on Expert Testimony

Text: Douglas Junior Lewis died on October 25, 1995, as a result of gunshot wounds he suffered. Perry allegedly fired the bullets into Lewis on August 12, 1995. Lewis survived the shooting and was released from the hospital five days after abdominal surgery to remove a bullet, but he lost a kidney and underwent a resection of a portion of his colon. On October 22, 1995, he returned to Rhode Island Hospital complaining of nausea, vomiting and stomach pain  common side effects of Lewis's psychotropic mushroom consumption, according to the evidence adduced at trial. Although the hospital examined and released him, he returned the next day with the same complaints. After an X-ray of his colon revealed an obstruction to the small bowel, the hospital admitted him. The next night he collapsed and died after trying to remove the intravenous tubes and apparatus from his arm. The state medical examiner concluded that Lewis died as a result of peritonitis caused by a bowel obstruction that developed as a result of adhesions of the bowel at the area of the earlier abdominal surgery. She opined that the manner of death was homicide because the scar formation was due to, in part, the surgery necessary to save his life    and also due to the gunshot itself, which necessitated the surgery. Although Perry's lawyer vigorously cross-examined the medical examiner concerning the validity of her causation conclusion, the medical examiner did not waiver or change her opinion and Perry called no expert witness to rebut her testimony. At the end of his instructions to the jury, the trial justice included the following statement concerning this expert testimony: In this case expert testimony has concluded, and you must weigh this, that the cause of death of the decedent was the gunshot wound that was allegedly perpetrated by this defendant. That's the only expert opinion you have with regard to cause of death. Perry's attorney objected to this instruction, contending that by asserting, [t]hat's the only expert opinion you have with regard to cause of death, the court was in essence instructing the jury that because the defendant had failed to counter the medical examiner's conclusion by calling its own medical expert, the jury had to find that the testimony of the prosecution's medical expert was true and uncontradicted. The trial justice rejected this suggestion and refused to instruct the jury as Perry's attorney had suggested, nor did he otherwise modify the instructions he had given. Perry argues that the above-quoted remarks foisted upon the jury the court's personal views regarding the weight to be afforded the only expert evidence in the case. He suggests that by concluding his instructions to the jury on the expert testimony in the way that he did, the trial justice effectively undid all his prior instructions concerning expert evidence and crossed the line between assisting the jury, which is his duty, and encroaching upon the jury's responsibilities as factfinders, which is forbidden. In sum, Perry argues, the trial justice removed from the jurors their job to determine the cause of death. Through his attorney's vigorous cross-examination of the state's medical examiner, Perry maintains, many reasons emerged why this expert's testimony should have been partially or completely rejected by the jury  especially because the causation evidence linking the shooting to Lewis's death three months later was by no means conclusive. Thus, as a result of this improper instruction, Perry argues, his motion for a new trial should have been granted because the trial justice fatally undercut his ability to argue reasonable doubt to the jury. The state responds by observing that the trial justice's concluding remarks on the expert testimony in this case may not have been necessary, but, [they were] an accurate summary of the evidence already before the jury. It also argues that the challenged statements did not impermissibly invade the province of the jury, particularly when considered in light of the complete charge that the trial justice gave to the jury concerning expert-opinion evidence. When this Court reviews challenged jury instructions, we do so holistically. Put differently, we do not review jury instructions in a piecemeal fashion. See Baccari v. Donat, 741 A.2d 262, 264 (R.I. 1999) (per curiam). Thus, [w]e shall not exaggerate out of context a single word or phrase or sentence in an instruction; rather, the challenged portion will be examined in the context of the entire instruction. State v. Brezinski, 731 A.2d 711, 713 (R.I.1999) (per curiam). When viewed in their entirety, we hold that the instructions in this case concerning expert-opinion evidence did not violate any of Perry's rights. The situation at bar is similar to the one that this Court faced in State v. Ferola, 534 A.2d 173 (R.I.1987). There, the trial justice had instructed the jury that, to rule in favor of the defendant, the jury would have to disbelieve the medical examiner's unequivocal opinion that the manner of death was a homicide. Id. at 175. The trial justice told the jurors that he was not invading their province, but was only guiding them in the process of reasoning that would be necessary to reach a rational determination of fact. Id. In upholding these instructions, we stated that [a] trial justice's instruction to the jury is not a mere abstract formulation of principles of law. Id. Most significantly, we concluded that the trial justice was not in error in stating to the jury that defendant's theory or statement was not reconcilable with the findings of the medical examiner. Id. Here, when assaying the propriety of the trial justice's statements to the jury about the medical examiner's testimony, we must do so in the context of the jury instructions as a whole. Previously, the trial justice had instructed the jury, in pertinent part, as follows: You, the members of the jury, are the sole judges of the facts.