Court Opinion

ID: 9546956
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:38:32.336134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:05.145835
License: Public Domain

Rose, J.,
concurring:
Although I wholeheartedly concur with the majority’s opinion, I want to elaborate on why psychiatric predictions of a defendant’s future dangerousness are unreliable, and thus should be inadmissible as trial evidence. The testimony of the State’s psychiatrist in this case is illustrative of the problem presented by such testimony.
At trial, the court permitted the testimony of Dr. Clay Griffith, a Texas physician specializing in forensic psychiatry.1 Dr. Griffith testified to his impressive medical credentials in court. He also stated that over the past twenty-five years, he has examined over 8,000 people charged with offenses and has testified in approxi*238mately half of those cases. Of the over one hundred and fifty death penalty-eligible defendants Dr. Grifiith has examined, he has testified ninety-seven times for the prosecution and two times for the defense. Based upon his experience, Dr. Grifiith informed the jury that he is “one hundred percent accurate” on death penalty cases.2
Dr. Griffith did not examine Timothy Redmen in person. Rather, he based his opinion on tapes of Redmen’s confession, Redmen’s testimony at trial,3 and approximately one hundred photographs not admitted into evidence.4 Based upon this evidence, Dr. Griffith concluded that Redmen is a sociopath within the upper limits of this personality disorder, and that he has no feelings and no conscience. He also stated that sociopaths are *239untreatable and are in continuous conflict with society, and that Redmen will continue to be a danger to society.
The seminal case addressing expert testimony by psychiatrists in death penalty cases is Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880 (1983). Barefoot was a Texas case involving the murder of a police officer by a man with prior possession offenses but no history of violent crimes. Id. at 883-84, 917. The trial court heard testimony from two psychiatrists, neither of whom had examined or requested to examine the defendant. Both recited their impressive credentials to the jury. Id. at 917 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). In addition, as in the instant case, one of the psychiatrists, Dr. James Grigson, stated that Barefoot ranked “above 10” on a scale of one to ten for sociopaths. Id. at 919. The defense in Barefoot argued that admission of the psychiatrists’ testimonies was unconstitutional because psychiatrists are not competent to predict the future and because their error rate is extremely high. Id. at 884-85. The majority concluded that the effect of such testimony could be adequately assuaged through impeachment of the witness and through the introduction of opposing witnesses.5 Id. at 899-901.
I find the dissent of Justice Blackmun instructive. He argues that psychiatric predictions of future dangerousness are unreliable, that it is extremely difficult to attack the credibility of a psychiatrist’s opinion on this subject, and that the need for reliable evidence in a death penalty case mandates the exclusion of expert evidence of questionable reliability. Concerning the accuracy of psychiatric predictions, he states:
The American Psychiatric Association (APA), participating in this case as amicus curiae, informs us that “[t]he unreliability of psychiatric predictions of long-term future dangerousness is by now an established fact within the profession.” Brief for American Psychiatric Association as Amicus Curiae 12 (APA Brief). The APA’s best estimate is that two out of three predictions of long-term future violence made by psychiatrists are wrong. Id., at 9, 13. The Court does not dispute this proposition, see ante, at 899-901, n. 7, and indeed it could not do so; the evidence is overwhelming. For example, the APA’s Draft Report of the Task Force on the Role of Psychiatry in the Sentencing Process (1983) (Draft Report) states that “[considerable evidence has been accumulated by now to demonstrate that long-term predic*240tion by psychiatrists of future violence is an extremely inaccurate process.” Id., at 29. John Monahan, recognized as “the leading thinker on this issue” even by the State’s expert witness at Barefoot’s federal habeas corpus hearing, Hearing Tr. 195, conclude that “the ‘best’ clinical research currently in existence indicates that psychiatrists and psychologists are accurate in no more than one out of three predictions of violent behavior,” even among populations of individuals who are mentally ill and have committed violence in the past. J. Monahan, The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behavior 47-49 (1981) (emphasis deleted) (J. Monahan, Clinical Prediction); see also id., at 6-7, 44-50. Another study has found it impossible to identify any subclass of offenders “whose members have a greater-than-even chance of engaging again in an assaultive act.” Wenk, Robison, & Smith, Can Violence be Predicted?, 18 Crime & Delinquency 393, 394 (1972). Yet another commentator observes: “In general, mental health professionals ... are more likely to be wrong than right when they predict legally relevant behavior. When predicting violence, dangerousness, and suicide, they are far more likely to be wrong than right.” Morse, Crazy Behavior, Morals, and Science: An Analysis of Mental Health Law, 51 S. Cal. L. Rev. 527, 600 (1978) (Morse, Analysis of Mental Health Law). Neither the Court nor the State of Texas has cited a single reputable scientific source contradicting the unanimous conclusion of professionals in this field that psychiatric predictions of long-term future violence are wrong more often than they are right.
Id. at 920-921 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (emphasis in original; footnote omitted).
Evidence is only admissible if it is relevant. NRS 48.025(2). To be relevant, the evidence must have a tendency to make the existence of a material fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence. NRS 48.015. If the American Psychiatric Association and other scholarly studies are correct, expert psychiatric testimony concerning an individual’s future dangerousness does not make the existence of that dangerousness more or less probable. Thus, such evidence should be disallowed because it is not relevant.
Furthermore, Justice Blackmun notes that the insidious nature of the psychiatrists’ mostly inaccurate testimony is compounded by the fact that jurors readily accept as factual opinion testimony by qualified experts in scientific fields.6 Id. at 926. Where highly *241credentialed scientific experts swear to their one hundred percent accuracy, impeachment provides an ineffectual remedy. Id. at 929-30.
The practical effect of permitting psychiatric testimony on a defendant’s future dangerousness in the trial of death penalty cases would be more expert testimony and additional costs. If the State is permitted to present such evidence, the defense will want, and indeed should be entitled to, a psychiatrist to testify and rebut the State’s expert. Both psychiatrists will be paid by the State. The end result would be that in death penalty cases we would extend the time of trials, have additional expert witnesses giving their speculation on a defendant’s future dangerousness, and increase costs, all without any clear benefit to our understanding of the case.
The answer is simple and it is the one we announce today. Prohibit the admission of this unreliable expert testimony and let the juries in Nevada make decisions on the death penalty as they have for years — based upon the facts of the case and the arguments of counsel.

 Griffith’s testimony was undoubtedly influenced by his Texas practice. Death penalty sentencing in Texas is a two-step process. Eligibility for the death penalty is determined by the jurors during the guilt-innocence phase of a capital murder trial. Note, A Reasoned Moral Response: Rethinking Texas’s Capital Sentencing Statute After Penry v. Lynaugh, 69 Tex.L.Rev. 407, 436 (1990). If a unanimous jury responds affirmatively to three questions, the *238trial judge has no discretion in sentencing the defendant to death. Id. at 438. The second of these questions is:
(2) whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society ....
Tex. Crim. Proc. Code Ann. § 37.071(b) (Vernon Supp. 1991) (emphasis added).
Because Texas cannot obtain a death penalty conviction without convincing jurors that the element of probable future dangerousness has been satisfied, and industry has developed supporting psychiatrists who specialize at this task. Dr. James Grigson, also of Texas, claims to have examined more than 12,000 prisoners during his career and earns approximately $200,000 a year from court-ordered examinations. See 20/20: Dr. Death (ABC television broadcast, November 25, 1988) (transcript on file at Journal Graphics) (hereinafter Dr. Death).

 Griffith was less certain as to whether he is always accurate in non-death penalty cases.

 On cross-examination, Dr. Griffith stated that his opinions were formed when he “watched [Redmen] testify, the manner in which he testified, and the manner in which he answered questions, he was very controlled.” In particular, he stated that his conclusion that Redmen had neither a conscience nor feelings derived from Redmen’s failure to use the word “anger” or the term “excitement” when he testified. Dr. Griffith subsequently admitted that nothing Redmen said or did on the stand could have swayed his opinion of him, given all the material he had.

 I also am troubled by the fact that an expert witness offering opinion testimony was given access to photographs considered too prejudicial to be seen by the jury. As Dr. Griffith has denied relying upon Redmen’s trial testimony in forming his opinion, and as no psychological examination was conducted by him, it appears that Dr. Griffith’s conclusions were based primarily upon this inadmissible evidence and Redmen’s confession. Furthermore, Dr. Griffith told the three-judge panel that his opinion was based in part upon these one hundred photographs that they were not allowed to see. If this had been a jury, its logical conclusion would have been that Dr. Griffith possessed not only superior scientific knowledge but also better factual knowledge of the case than was presented to the jury.

 The majority in Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 901 (1983), went so far as to say that “[n]either the petitioner nor the [American Psychiatric Association] suggests that psychiatrists are always wrong with respect to future dangerousness, only most of the time.” (Emphasis added.)

 For example, Blackmun notes that polygraph evidence is generally excluded because of concerns that the jury will be unduly influenced by it, *241even though the reliability of polygraph tests (eighty to ninety percent accuracy) greatly exceeds that of psychiatric testimony. Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 930 (1983) (Blackmun, J., dissenting).