Opinion ID: 1681076
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: discussion of state-funded expert assistance

Text: The remand order on original appeal in Frank I touched on the cornerstone of the Supreme Court's evolving capital jurisprudence over the past thirty years. In the context of a capital case, a critical component of a fundamentally fair trial of the penalty phase that comports with the requirements of the Eighth Amendment is that the jury must be able to consider and give effect to any mitigating evidence relevant to a defendant's background and character or the circumstances of the crime. Blystone v. Pennsylvania, 494 U.S. 299, 304-05, 110 S.Ct. 1078, 1082, 108 L.Ed.2d 255 (1990)(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Defense counsel has a correlative duty to conduct an investigation of the defendant's background for possible mitigating evidence. State ex rel. Busby v. Butler, 538 So.2d 164, 169 (La.1988). That duty may encompass a request for state-funded assistance in investigating and presenting mitigating evidence at a capital sentencing hearing on behalf of an indigent defendant. State v. Craig, 93-2515 (La.5/23/94), 637 So.2d 437. In Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 83, 105 S.Ct. 1087, 1096, 84 L.Ed.2d 53 (1985), the Supreme Court held that a state-funded psychiatric expert is a basic tool for a defendant's case, when the defendant demonstrates to the trial judge that his sanity at the time of the offense is to be a significant factor at trial. 470 U.S. at 83, 104 S.Ct. at 1096. The Court also stated that where the consequence of error is so great, the relevance of responsive psychiatric testimony so evident, and the burden on the State so slim, due process requires access to a psychiatric examination on relevant issues, to the testimony of the psychiatrist, and to assistance in preparation at the sentencing phase. Ake, 470 U.S. at 84, 105 S.Ct. at 1097. The Supreme Court has also explained that mitigation evidence encompasses any aspect of the defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death. Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978). This evidence may include such mitigation as a defendant's disturbed and violent upbringing. Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 115, 102 S.Ct. 869, 877, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982). In Craig, we upheld a trial court decision ordering payment for the services of an investigator, a psychologist, and a mitigation expert, finding that those services were necessary to provide the indigent defendant with an adequate opportunity to present his defense. However, we emphasized that an indigent defendant wishing to obtain funding for the production or gathering of any evidence must make a showing of the necessity for those services. Craig, 93-2589 at p. 13, 637 So.2d at 447. We elaborated upon that holding in Touchet when we addressed the specific issue of what showing an indigent needs to make in order to obtain state-funded expert assistance. We stated that, for an indigent defendant to be granted the services of an expert at the expense of the state, he or she must establish that there exists a reasonable probability both that an expert would be of assistance to the defense and that the denial of expert assistance would result in a fundamentally unfair trial. Touchet, 93-2839 at p. 6, 642 So.2d at 1216. To meet this standard, we explained, a defendant must ordinarily establish, with a reasonable degree of specificity, that the assistance is required to answer a substantial issue or question that is raised by the prosecution's case or to support a critical element of the defense. If the trial court finds that the indigent defendant is able to meet this standard, it must authorize the hiring of the expert at the expense of the state. Id. In the instant case, the record on remand establishes that defendant was provided access to a mental health expert for mitigation purposes by an expert of her counsel's choosing, but she refused his assistance. [4] In fact, defendant consistently refused throughout this case to cooperate with mental health experts. She refused to be interviewed pre-trial by a court-appointed forensic psychiatrist regarding her competency. [5] She refused to cooperate pre-trial with the mitigation expert sent by her own attorney. She again refused to be examined post-trial by the court-appointed psychiatrist for the Uniform Capital Sentencing Report. In this court's original opinion, we rejected the state's argument that a remand was unnecessary because defendant's refusal to cooperate with a court-appointed psychiatrist for the purpose of determining whether she was competent to stand trial meant she would not cooperate with any other evaluation for purposes of presenting mitigating evidence. See Frank I, 99-0553 at p. 9 n. 5, 803 So.2d at 10 n. 5. However, it was revealed at the hearing on remand that defendant had in fact refused before trial to cooperate with a mitigation expert chosen by her attorney. This fact was unknown to the courts prior to the presentation of Dr. Zimmerman's testimony at the hearing on remand. In light of the fact that defendant was provided access to a mitigation expert by her attorney and refused to be interviewed by him, we cannot say under Touchet that there exists a reasonable probability that a mitigation expert would have been of assistance to the defense. While the experts testified on remand that further evaluation of defendant and her psycho-social history, including her claims of abuse, was warranted and that a mental health expert could have aided the defense in responding to the state's case, the nature of defendant's claims appears to preclude such help without defendant's cooperation, which was not forthcoming pre-trial. Defendant's current allegations of childhood abuse and her father's mental illness were not revealed until after her conviction and sentence were imposed. In fact, prior to her interview with Dr. Deland, the issues of abuse and familial mental disease were specifically denied by defendant. Although defendant's mother corroborated a portion of the allegations defendant made to Dr. Deland when Dr. Deland questioned her, she and other family members who might have been expected to corroborate evidence of abuse and of the father's strange and often violent behavior testified at the penalty phase and failed to raise the issue. Defendant has produced no other corroborating evidence that was available prior to trial that an expert could have made use of in the absence of defendant's assistance. The defense contends that defendant refused to cooperate with the mitigation expert they provided her because she had made it clear she would not talk to mental health experts without them. However, they failed to explain why they sent the expert to interview defendant without one of her attorneys being present. Defendant freely spoke to Drs. Deland, Turin, Salcedo, and Richoux about her childhood in the absence of her attorneys during the evaluations conducted for purposes of the hearings on remand. Defendant's failure to cooperate pre-trial with the mitigation expert chosen by her attorneys also convinces us that her sentencing proceeding was not fundamentally unfair. She was not denied access to mitigation expert assistance by the district court's error in not declaring her indigent. Rather, she refused the services of the mitigation expert of her own volition. There was no interference by a state actor that denied her access to mental health expert assistance. Thus, the district court's erroneous ruling did not result in a fundamentally unfair trial. Defendant has not successfully made a showing under Touchet that there existed a reasonable probability both that an expert would have been of assistance to the defense and that the denial of expert assistance resulted in a fundamentally unfair trial. She had access to a mitigation expert and refused his services. In Ake, the Supreme Court stated a defendant has a right of access to an expert mental health evaluation and his assistance in defense of the case. Defendant was provided such access and failed to take advantage of it. Consequently, defendant has not shown prejudice in not obtaining state-funded expert assistance. See Frank I, 99-0553 at pp. 9-10, 803 So.2d at 11 (stating that the trial court's failure to hold a hearing provided inadequate information upon which this court could review the question of whether defendant was entitled to the expert assistance she requested for the penalty phase of her trial and what prejudice she may have suffered as a result of not obtaining state-funded assistance). See also State v. Juniors, 03-2425, p. 58 (La.6/29/05), 915 So.2d 291, 333 (finding defendant failed to demonstrate that the denial of the expert assistance substantially prejudiced him at trial); State v. Prestridge, 399 So.2d 564, 581 (La.1981) (stating that when an indigent defendant has been denied funds to obtain expert assistance, the issue on review becomes whether the denial of funds substantially prejudiced the defendant at trial). We find no error in the trial court's ruling in this regard.