Court Opinion

ID: 9861954
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:55:48.400392+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:51.025749
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I agree with the court that the attorney-client privilege generally extends to communications made by a defendant to a mental health professional and, moreover, that the privilege is not waived or lost simply by the defendant’s assertion of an insanity defense. Under the unique circumstances of this case, however, I would grant the prosecution access to evidence developed by the psychiatrist who examined the defendant shortly after the commission of the present crimes. The defendant was charged with the murder of her mother, Nancy Knuckles. According to the indictment, the defendant strangled her mother with a rope as the victim was leaving for work on the morning of November 28, 1984. A codefendant, Dennis Morris, assisted the defendant. After Mrs. Knuckles fell to the floor, the defendant’s brother, Barton Knuckles, secured a plastic bag over the victim’s head to prevent her from breathing. The body was then hidden in a steamer trunk, and the trunk was later dumped in a creek. For her role in these offenses, the defendant was indicted on two counts of murder, two counts of conspiracy, and one count of concealment of a homicidal death. Five codefendants, with varying levels of participation in the crimes, were charged as well. Dr. Lyle Rossiter, a psychiatrist retained by the defense, examined the defendant on December 12, 1984, just two weeks after the occurrence charged here. In April 1985, pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 413, the defense disclosed to the prosecution that it would not present at trial evidence of any physical or mental examinations or scientific tests. (107 Ill. 2d R. 413.) Moreover, counsel stated at that time that the sole defense to the charges would be a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. The parties later reached a plea agreement, and in June 1985 the defendant pleaded guilty to one count of murder and was sentenced to 33 years’ imprisonment. As part of the agreement, the State nol-prossed the remaining charges against the defendant. In January 1989, the defendant sought post-conviction relief, raising a number of grounds in support of her petition. In August 1989, more than four years after the defendant’s guilty plea, the trial court granted the defendant’s post-conviction petition. The defendant was then charged again with the original offenses. Represented by new counsel, the defendant later disclosed her intention to pursue two possible defenses at trial, insanity and self-defense. The defendant’s list of potential witnesses did not include the name of Dr. Rossiter, however. The State subsequently served Dr. Rossiter with a subpoena duces tecum, seeking any notes, reports, or memoranda prepared as part of his December 1984 examination of the defendant, as well as with a trial subpoena for his testimony. I agree with the court that communications by a defendant to a defense-retained mental-health expert are protected by the attorney-client privilege and, further, that a defendant’s decision to raise an insanity defense does not automatically result in the waiver of the privilege. Even in a jurisdiction subscribing to this view, however, it has been suggested that the shield of the attorney-client privilege must sometimes give way to the substantial public interest in the disclosure of otherwise protected information. (Pouncy v. State (Fla. App. 1977), 353 So. 2d 640, 642.) The majority’s refusal in the present case to enforce the subpoenas issued by the State to Dr. Rossiter will deprive the prosecution of reliable and perhaps irreproducible evidence of the defendant’s mental condition near the time of the charged offenses. Thus, I believe that the privilege must yield in the case at bar to the substantial public interest in allowing the prosecution access to this unique evidence. Dr. Rossiter’s testimony is particularly vital to the State because of the substantial delay between the defendant’s original mental examination and the present proceedings. As noted by one court, which denied habeas corpus relief to a defendant whose assertion of an insanity defense had been held to result in the waiver of any privilege: "[T]here may well be instances where the psychiatrist seeing the defendant at defense counsel’s request shortly after the event, may have much more useful information than would a doctor who saw him much later when treatment and soothing time have intervened to change the defendant’s reactions.” United States ex rel. Edney v. Smith (E.D.N.Y. 1976), 425 F. Supp. 1038, 1052-53, aff’d without opinion (2d Cir. 1977), 556 F.2d 556. Dr. Rossiter examined the defendant in December 1984, shortly after the occurrence charged here. Defense counsel later disclaimed any intention of raising an insanity defense, however, and the defendant’s eventual decision, in June 1985, to enter a guilty plea seemingly made moot any issue regarding her mental condition. Relying on the defendant’s actions, the State had no apparent need then to garner or preserve any psychological evidence, and no other examination of the defendant was conducted in that period. The defendant was not examined by a prosecution expert until July 1990, more than 51/2 years after the crimes, when the defendant finally put her mental state at issue. Because of this lengthy delay, which is due in no part to the conduct of the prosecution, I would allow the State access to Dr. Rossiter’s evidence. Had the defendant chosen to raise an insanity defense in 1985, the State could have promptly obtained an order requiring the defendant to submit to an examination by the mental-health expert of its choice. (See Ill. Rev. Stat. 1985, ch. 38, par. 115 — 6.) The unusual course of events in this case, however, denied the prosecution an opportunity to have the defendant examined by its own expert in the immediate aftermath of the crimes. Dr. Rossiter is the only expert witness who can provide nearly contemporaneous evidence of the defendant’s mental condition at the time of the offenses. In these circumstances, the prosecution, and perhaps ultimately the trier of fact, should not be denied his evidence if the defendant elects to raise an insanity defense. Contrary to the majority’s assertion (165 Ill. 2d at 135), the State’s argument is not that relevance must, in all cases, overcome the attorney-client privilege, but simply that relevance may do so here. This is not a generalized public-interest exception, as the majority elsewhere insists (165 Ill. 2d at 144), but a particularized one, tailored to and reflective of the procedural history of this case. I do not believe that the disclosure requested by the State would trench on the defendant’s constitutional rights to the assistance of counsel or to a fair trial, alternative theories advanced by the defense. Accordingly, I would enforce the subpoenas issued to Dr. Rossiter and allow the prosecution access to the material sought, if on remand the defendant continues to assert an insanity defense.