Opinion ID: 2159715
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ronald Silikovitz

Text: As noted, from February through August 1992, Lapidus and Soto had focused their efforts on the motion to withdraw the guilty plea. To that end, they retained Silikovitz to evaluate DiFrisco. Krakora approved Silikovitz's retention as an expert to evaluate client for purposes of motion to retract guilty plea in capital case. How Silikovitz came to counsel's attention is unclear. Evidently, he had previously worked on cases for the Public Defender's Office and had provided that office with brochures reflecting his education and experience. When contacted by Soto in February 1992, he was led to believe that a decision had already been made to retain him, but Soto did not discuss his experience in testifying or his areas of expertise. In fact, Silikovitz had no relevant experience. He specialized in evaluating special needs children, sexual abuse ... the kind [of cases] that [the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services] would investigate which include also bonding [and] termination of parental rights. He had never worked on a capital case. On February 14, 1992, Soto sent Silikovitz a case syllabus, a detective bureau case report, a transcript of DiFrisco's guilty plea, and a transcript of the first penalty trial for his use in evaluating DiFrisco. Silikovitz then spent three hours with DiFrisco on February 21, 1992. Although Silikovitz had been retained to evaluate DiFrisco for the motion to retract his guilty plea, he was never told the legal standards for plea withdrawal, and he never discussed those standards with trial counsel. Moreover, although trial counsel claimed to have intended that DiFrisco be evaluated for the presence of learning disabilities, they never asked Silikovitz to do so, and he did not. Indeed, he was not even provided with DiFrisco's school records. Neither was Silikovitz asked to evaluate DiFrisco for any other disorders, and he did not. Because trial counsel had emphasized the urgency of receiving the report before the March 2, 1992 deadline, Silikovitz produced his first report on February 25, 1992, four days after meeting with DiFrisco. Notwithstanding trial counsel's stated purpose in retaining Silikovitz, the report did not address the voluntariness of DiFrisco's guilty plea. Instead, it recited DiFrisco's version of the circumstances of his confession and discussed his overall psychological state. Silikovitz reported that DiFrisco could not recall any phase of the confession process, because he was high on cocaine and probably also heroin at the time when the `confession' was made, that DiFrisco's mother and personnel at the Parole Department had witnessed his condition that day, and that his attorney and the physician who treated him for his drug withdrawal following his arrest witnessed and most likely documented the state that he was in while he was being questioned. Silikovitz found that DiFrisco manifested guilt and remorse related to his history of criminal and drug activity, and that he understands fully that specific crimes deserve specific consequences. Analyzing the results of the intelligence tests he had performed, Silikovitz reported that DiFrisco had his greatest difficulty on tasks requiring him to arrange pictures depicting social situations in a logical sequence, and that Mr. DiFrisco may be more of a follower and a victim of circumstances rather than an individual who tends to initiate, originate, and create difficulty. Silikovitz found that DiFrisco's figure drawings similarly suggested his tentativeness, self-doubt, and uncertainty regarding identity and, precisely, who he is. Silikovitz further noted that DiFrisco appears to be interested in rehabilitation, and that he was optimistic and goal-directed. He said that DiFrisco was fully cooperative with [him], and that he had the sense that Mr. DiFrisco was being totally candid, open and honest regarding the issues that were being discussed. This tendency further reflected his apparent credibility. Despite his observation that DiFrisco does have a good sense of what is right and what is wrong, however, Silikovitz's ultimate diagnosis was Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) [1] and multiple drug dependencies. Soto testified at the PCR hearing that, upon reviewing that report, she concluded that it was harmful to DiFrisco. In particular, she was concerned that the ASPD diagnosis may have caused the defense not to use Silikovitz as a witness. Lapidus was less concerned about the diagnosis, and thought that, when viewed in the context of the rest of the report, it was not terribly damaging. Krakora, the only experienced capital litigator to review the report, concluded that it was awful, and considered it to herald the end of Silikovitz. In Krakora's view, which he expressed to Soto and Lapidus, the report indicated that Silikovitz did not have a grasp of the big picture, and did not seem to understand that this was a forensic evaluation in a capital murder case for someone who pled guilty to a capital murder. Despite the misgivings of Soto and Krakora, Lapidus not only maintained contact with Silikovitz but also expanded his role. Specifically, on March 7, 1992, she asked Silikovitz to evaluate and assess possible mitigating factors, sending him background materials for that purpose. Silikovitz's notes from the March 7, 1992 conversation indicate that he understood he was to try to save DiFrisco's life. Lapidus asked Silikovitz to meet with DiFrisco a second time, and to add to his report a discussion of mitigating factors in preparation for the May trial. That was the first time that anyone had discussed mitigating factors with Silikovitz. On March 11, 1992, Silikovitz met with DiFrisco for three more hours. That was his last meeting with DiFrisco, thus bringing the total time Silikovitz spent with DiFrisco to six hours. After the interview, on March 17, 1992, Pamela Cuevas, an investigator with the Office of the Public Defender, faxed to Silikovitz a witness list and a copy of the section of the New Jersey criminal code listing aggravating and mitigating factors in death penalty cases, pursuant to Lapidus's direction. Prior to receiving that information, and given his complete lack of experience in capital cases, Silikovitz did not know what legally constituted aggravating and mitigating factors. Because he was unaware of the relevant legal standards when he conducted his second interview of DiFrisco, Silikovitz simply relied on DiFrisco's own reasons for why he should not be put to death. After conducting telephone interviews with four of DiFrisco's family members and his former girlfriend, Silikovitz met with Lapidus on May 18, 1992, to discuss possible mitigating factors, and with Lapidus and Soto on June 1, 1992, to discuss the pertinent diagnostic criteria listed in the DSM-III-R. Lapidus and Soto requested that Silikovitz revisit his ASPD diagnosis. Upon reviewing the DSM-III-R with trial counsel, Silikovitz concluded that his earlier diagnosis, which had been based upon his faulty recollection of the DSM-III-R criteria, had been incorrect. On June 8, 1992, Silikovitz again met with Lapidus and Soto to discuss additional, mainly stylistic, revisions to his report. Trial counsel never asked Silikovitz to conduct further psychological or neurological tests on DiFrisco or otherwise to develop additional potential mitigating evidence. Soto testified that Silikovitz communicated to her that his evaluation of DiFrisco was comprehensive and that she therefore believed that further testing was not necessary. She stated, I certainly relied on [Silikovitz] as the expert in this case to guide me with regard to any further testing he felt the results of the test that he had done would warrant. (Emphasis added). Thus, because Silikovitz told her that the testing was adequate, Soto did not request additional testing. Indeed, Soto relied entirely on Silikovitz's assessment of what tests were appropriate because, as she acknowledged, she never familiarized herself with the different types of psychological testing that were available and generally used in similar cases. She therefore was unable to review Silikovitz's initial report with even a modicum of sophistication and was unable to form an opinion regarding the completeness of the testing to determine whether additional tests were necessary. By Silikovitz's own admission, however, his testing was not comprehensive. For example, he had not administered any objective psychological tests (as contrasted with projective or intelligence tests), which constitute an essential element of a comprehensive forensic psychological evaluation. Moreover, the psychological tests that Silikovitz did perform were administered in an incomplete manner. He testified that, due to time constraints, he did not perform the standard sub-parts of the intelligence test he administered. PCR counsel's expert, Dr. Alan Goldstein, explained that only three of the nine tests Silikovitz administered were complete. Nevertheless, Silikovitz produced a revised report. It deleted the former ASPD diagnosis and replaced it with a diagnosis of Adult Antisocial Behavior. [2] Although it was dated June 4, the report was not completed until August 22, 1992, and incorporated additional changes suggested at the June 12 meeting between Silikovitz, Lapidus, and Soto. The second report, unlike the first, included a section explicitly discussing mitigating factors and summarizing interviews with DiFrisco's family members and his former girlfriend. [3] It also provided greater detail to support Silikovitz's conclusion that DiFrisco was remorseful: Mr. DiFrisco spoke of the grief and remorse that he has suffered as a result of the crime. He notes that this crime has pressed so deepit wasn't really meI was like a machineI was a different person while under the influence of drugs. He spoke about remorse and depression. He stated, with considerable affect and credibility, if I could cut my arm off to change it,I would. I feel bad and I feel worse than this person's family. I feel remorse. I try to blot it out. It is hard to identify with the other me. He further indicated that he has had bouts of depression during the course of his incarceration. ... In this psychologist's expert opinion, these feelings of quilt, remorse, and depression are genuine. They reflect the thought that Mr. DiFrisco has given over the past five years to the implication of his act to the decedent's family and to society. The crime was, in this psychologist's view, a somewhat traumatic event for Mr. DiFrisco. Silikovitz's second report summarized information about DiFrisco's childhood, in particular his lack of supervision and need for male role models, that had not been included in his first report. It also tethered those aspects of DiFrisco's childhood to his history of substance abuse: Mr. DiFrisco's father was not an adequate role model and Anthony was never emotionally close with his father. Consequently, he desperately sought the approval of his siblings, his peers and ultimately Mr. Franciotti, who was clearly a father figure. Mr. DiFrisco began to become involved with drugs, first on a casual basis and then on a heavy, addicted basis. He is a drug addict and has been dependent on both cocaine and heroin. Predisposed to substance abuse and criminal activity, increasingly susceptible to the influence of his peers, and desperately seeking approval, Mr. DiFrisco was particularly vulnerable at the time that Mr. Franciotti made the offer that he did. Silikovitz reiterated his conclusions about DiFrisco's remorse and his susceptibility to influence by others. Finally, the second reportconsistent with the firstopined that DiFrisco was candid and sensitive, and that he had rehabilitative potential. Lapidus and Soto responded differently to Silikovitz's second report. Lapidus found the report useful, in part because it conveyed DiFrisco's remorse, which she considered to be the key to the mitigation case. She stated that when I first met Anthony, and had the opportunity to speak with him and interview him, it was apparent to me that he was clearly remorseful. Lapidus further believed that the report conveyed DiFrisco's regard for Franciotti as a father figure and his susceptibility to Franciotti's influence because of his drug dependency and need for a male role model. Finally, she approved of Silikovitz's recitation of DiFrisco's extensive drug use and linkage of the drug abuse to his crime. Soto, on the other hand, remained troubled by Silikovitz's original diagnosis of ASPD and the revised adult antisocial behavior diagnosis. She was adamant that Silikovitz not be called as a witness. Silikovitz believed he would testify as an expert witness at the trial. However, with the exception of one administrative phone call from investigator Pam Cuevas in October 1992, Silikovitz never heard from the defense team again. He learned that he had not been called to testify at trial only after the fact, when a member of his synagogue told him DiFrisco had been sentenced to death. As it turns out, Silikovitz was dropped from the defense team and was not replaced by another, more competent witness, because of a shift in DiFrisco's counsel.