Opinion ID: 1742511
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Limit of Dr. Clark Heindel's Testimony

Text: Also under this assignment of error, the defendant argues that the trial court wrongly limited the testimony of Dr. Heindel and thereby prevented the defendant from proving that he never had a chance of avoiding pedophilia. The defense called Dr. Heindel, the mental health director with the Georgia Department of Corrections when the defendant was incarcerated there. Dr. Heindel holds a doctorate in educational psychology and counseling. He met with the defendant on at least ten occasions during the defendant's incarceration. During his testimony, the defense asked Dr. Heindel what he thought of the defendant's prognosis for treatment. He responded, Pretty poor.... Well, at that point, I had not had that much experience working with pedophiles. But, I knew that it would take a significant amount of treatment with some very good aftercare. He went on to explain that in the last four or five years he had more experience with working with pedophiles. The defense further asked, overall, in terms of when you say pretty poor, what sort of treatment do you feel, from your experience in this area, would cure Mr. Langley's problems? The State objected to the question and the trial judge sustained the objection because, having not seen the defendant since his incarceration in Georgia, the witness was not qualified to give this opinion. The purpose of an expert witness is to provide the jurors with a basis of knowledge and background information on a subject. La. C.E. art. 702. The trial judge is vested with broad discretion in ruling on the scope of expert testimony. La. C.E. art. 702, comment (d); State v. Billiot, 94-2419 (La.App. 1st Cir. 4/4/96); 672 So.2d 361, 373; State v. Mays, 612 So.2d 1040, 1044 (La.App. 2nd Cir.1993), writ denied, 619 So.2d 576 (La. 1993). The witness admitted that at the time he was working with and evaluating the defendant he had very little experience with pedophiles. Thus, the trial judge did not abuse is broad discretion in determining that the witness was not qualified to offer his opinion of whether or not the defendant was curable. Therefore, this is not reversible error. We note also that the trial judge excluded testimony on this subject by the State's witness, Troy Mire, who had never treated Langley.