Opinion ID: 1910615
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: unassigned error

Text: This Court's review of the record of a capital defendant includes a review for record error. Two expert witnesses opined that the defendant was the perpetrator of the Chaney homicides. Sgt. L.L. Jackson, a fingerprint expert, stated he positively believed the palm prints left by the defendant on the Chaney's bathtub were left when the defendant drowned Vivian Chaney. Tr. 4048, 4069-70. Detective Mark Rogers, an expert in fingerprint and crime scene analysis, testified that the palm prints lifted from the bathtub, which had been matched to the defendant's, were left by the perpetrator of the crime. Tr. 4126. No contemporaneous objection was raised to this testimony. The lack of contemporaneous objection or assignment of error as to this issue does not preclude this Court's review in a capital case. State v. Smith, 554 So.2d 676 (La.1989). When defense counsel did object to the general nature of this testimony during the testimony of another expert witness, the trial court sustained the objection and requested that the state rely on hypothetical questions which would avoid suggestiveness in the answers. La.C.E. art. 704 provides: Testimony in the form of an opinion or inference otherwise admissible is not to be excluded solely because it embraces an ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact. However, in a criminal case, an expert witness shall not express an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused. This Court has held it is reversible error for an expert witness to testify as to an ultimate issue of the defendant's guilt, even when couched in terms of a hypothetical situation. State v. Jones, 558 So.2d 546 (La. 1990); State v. White, 450 So.2d 648 (La. 1984); State v. Montana, 421 So.2d 895 (La. 1982). Sgt. Jackson's opinion that the defendant left his palm print on the bathtub when he killed Vivian Chaney expressly violated the prohibition against expert testimony on an ultimate issue of fact. The testimony of Detective Rogers implicitly violated the rule as well. Finding this error, however, does not necessarily end our analysis. The Supreme Court has implied the harmless error analysis is available for trial errors which may deprive the jury of its factfinding role. In Carella v. California, 491 U.S. 263, 109 S.Ct. 2419, 105 L.Ed.2d 218 (1989) (per curiam), the United States Supreme Court remanded for a determination of whether a harmless error analysis applied where the jury was erroneously instructed as to the applicability of a mandatory conclusive presumption. The Court noted [t]he Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment denies States the power to deprive the accused of liberty unless the prosecution proves beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the charged offense. Jury instructions relieving States of this burden violate a defendant's due process rights. Such directions subvert the presumption of innocence accorded to accused persons, and also invade the truth-finding task assigned solely to juries in criminal cases. Carella, 491 U.S. at 264, 109 S.Ct. at 2420 (citations omitted and emphasis supplied). The mandatory directions at issue in Carella directly foreclosed independent jury consideration of whether the facts proved established certain elements of the offense with which the defendant was charged. See also Pope v. Illinois, 481 U.S. 497, 107 S.Ct. 1918, 95 L.Ed.2d 439 (1987) (case remanded for lower courts to determine application of harmless error analysis to jury instruction containing misdescription of an element of the crime which deprived jury of its factfinding role). The proper analysis for determining harmless error is not whether, in a trial that occurred without the error, a guilty verdict would surely have been rendered, but whether the guilty verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error. Sullivan v. Louisiana, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 2081, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993) (emphasis in original). Prior to the Supreme Court's Sullivan opinion, which replaced the earlier harmless error analysis of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), Justice Scalia suggested a separate harmless error analysis when reviewing an error which deprives the jury of its fact-finding role. See Carella, J. Scalia concurrence, joined by Justices Brennan, Marshall and Blackmun. Justice Scalia suggests the following analysis: When the predicate facts relied upon in the instruction, or other facts necessarily found by the jury, are so closely related to the ultimate fact to be presumed that no rational jury could find those facts without also finding that ultimate fact, making those findings is functionally equivalent to finding the element required to be presumed. The error is harmless because it is beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury found the facts necessary to support the conviction. Carella, 491 U.S. at 270, 109 S.Ct. at 2423 (J. Scalia, concurrence, internal citation omitted). Under either the Sullivan harmless error analysis or the separate analysis suggested by Justice Scalia in Carella, the record of this case shows the error at issue here was unmistakably harmless. The state called five expert witnesses who testified the palm prints recovered from Vivian Chaney's bathtub matched the defendant's prints and were left on the recently cleaned bathtub near the time of the murder. Expert testimony made clear the prints were left as a result of forceful pressure downward and were inconsistent with those that would be left by someone getting in or out of the bathtub. Expert testimony established the palm prints were in such a position that they could only have been left by someone who held Vivian Chaney over the bathtub. The position of Vivian Chaney's body draped over the bathtub supported this conclusion. The state presented extensive evidence to show the defendant had never rented the Chaney house and had never worked there as a plumber. In addition, the trial court instructed the jury that it alone was to determine ultimate issues: It is the duty of the jurors to consider the opinions of an expert together with all the other testimony in the case and to give them such weight as they deem proper. However, experts are not called into court for the purpose of deciding the case. You, the jurors, are the ones who, in law, must bear the responsibility of deciding the case. The experts are merely witnesses, and you have the right to either accept or reject their testimony and opinions in the same manner and for the same reasons for which you may accept or reject the testimony of other witnesses in the case. Tr. 5381. Considering the admissible evidence concerning the palm prints, no rational juror could find those facts without also finding the ultimate fact of the defendant's guilt. It is beyond doubt the guilty verdict in this case was unattributable to the erroneous testimony.