Court Opinion

ID: 9488635
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:51:03.071525+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:00.215436
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
With all due respect to the court’s opinion, I believe that my colleagues have extended the holding in Azure and Whitted beyond the rationale of those cases.
It is important to consider the context in which Dr. Sherrets expressed his opinion regarding Crinklaw’s post-shooting emotional state. As quoted in the court’s opinion, Dr. Sherrets answered “Yes, he was,” in response to counsel’s question, ‘Was Joseph Crinklaw exhibiting the symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome?” Prior to that question and answer, Dr. Sherrets had described Crinklaw’s physical appearance at the time Dr. Sherrets met with him the morning of the shooting: “He was very distraught, very nervous, as I recall, I believe his asthma was bothering him somewhat. He was clearly emotionally upset, still very concerned, physically and emotionally upset.” This testimony was consistent with that of several of Crinklaw’s fellow officers, who testified that Crinklaw was “very pale and noticeably shaky,” that he was “[v]ery quiet, very soft-spoken, subdued, upset ... visibly shaken,” and that he looked “shocked ... just dazed.”
*1081Dr. Sherrets concluded from the symptoms manifested by Crinklaw that Crinklaw was experiencing posttraumatic stress. During cross-examination, Dr. Sherrets testified that “[a]ll I can tell you is that the accuracy of statements following these types of situations oftentimes have errors and inaccuracies in them.” Most telling, later during cross-examination the following exchange took place:
Q. You can’t tell us the facts on the report are accurate or not. True?
A. True.
Q. You can’t tell us what he told you afterwards is accurate. True?
A. There certainly are things that we do to establish the credibility of what one says or consistencies in one’s statements with what other people are told. And in determining the factualness that is your process, there are things that I was aware of or I was told that may add to or detract from that.
But the finding of truth or not truth strikes me as the legal arena and I’m a psychologist to describe what’s going on psychologically. I can offer what I was told, what I saw. Beyond that it’s up to you all. (Emphasis added.)
As I read Dr. Sherrets’ testimony, then, it consisted of his description of posttraumatic stress syndrome, the effect of that syndrome on the accuracy of the victim’s post-event recollection and description of the events that triggered the syndrome, and his conclusion that Crinklaw’s demeanor and behavior indicated that Crinklaw was experiencing post-traumatic stress. Dr. Sherrets disclaimed any intention to offer any opinion as to the truth of the various post-shooting accounts given by Crinklaw, stating, quite accurately, that “it’s up to you all.” And indeed it was for the jury to determine which of Crinklaw’s accounts represented the true picture of what he was faced with that early morning of October 29, 1986.
We said in Whitted, “[A] qualified expert can inform the jury of characteristics in sexually abused children and describe the characteristics the alleged victim exhibits.” 11 F.3d at 782. True, the expert may not express an opinion that sexual abuse has occurred or pass judgment on the alleged victim’s truthfulness. Id. at 785-86. In my opinion, Dr. Sherrets’ testimony violated neither of those proscriptions. It was for the jury, and for the jury alone, as emphasized by Dr. Sherrets himself, to determine where the truth lay with respect to Crinklaw’s statements, and Dr. Sherrets’ testimony did not invade the jury’s prerogative to do so, as implicitly found by the district court when it overruled the objection that raised that particular ground. Rather, what we said about the expert witness in United States v. Johns is equally applicable in the present case: “Dr. [Sherrets’] testimony was circumscribed so as to educate rather than to usurp the role of the jury....” 15 F.3d 740, 743 (8th Cir.1994). That Dr. Sherrets’ testimony provided a psychological explanation for Crinklaw’s varying accounts of the shooting, an explanation the validity of which I do not understand to be challenged, rendered that testimony no more inadmissible than the psychologist’s testimony in Johns. Finally, we must remember that the present case involves a civil action and not a criminal prosecution.
With respect to the district court’s other rulings that the court finds wanting, suffice it to say that I find none of them to represent an abuse of discretion. It should be noted that Crinklaw’s testimony regarding the continuous nature of his service on the Omaha police force came in, as the court notes, during cross-examination, when, in answer to the question, “Are you trying to give us the impression that that has been a continuous, uninterrupted time on the police force?”, Crinklaw answered, “Basically, yes.” Although the court says that this equivocal answer could be construed by the jury as a denial by Crinklaw that he had ever been suspended, it can just as plausibly be interpreted as a forthright answer to a question designed to set Crinklaw up for attack on a collateral issue. I would defer to the district court’s on-the-scene ruling made with the advantage of an appreciation of the nuances that do not readily find expression in the cold pages of the record.
I concur in Parts IV, Y, VI, and VII of the court’s opinion.
*1082This was a hard-fought trial, fraught with the emotions necessarily attendant upon a wrongful death action. We will never know what prompted Arden Westcott to burglarize the Keystone Pharmacy that October morning, an act that from all accounts was totally out of keeping with the way in which he had lived his life as a husband, father, and hardworking, law-abiding citizen up until that moment. I would not compound the tragic circumstances of Arden Westcott’s death by requiring Officer Crinklaw to run the gauntlet of yet another trial. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment.