Court Opinion

ID: 9751498
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:31:27.393185+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:48.993118
License: Public Domain

SAYLOR, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully differ with the majority's reasoning, which appears to conflate the analyses concerning the admission of Dr. Paul Fink’s testimony (resulting from a voluntary psychiatric examination) and the admission of Dr. Timothy Michals’ testimony (resulting from a compelled psychiatric examination by a Commonwealth expert).
Initially, I find the majority’s substantial focus on the admissibility of the expert psychiatric testimony of Dr. Fink to be misdirected, as Appellant does not argue that permitting the Commonwealth to introduce such testimony would violate his Fifth Amendment rights. Instead, Appellant consistently maintains that the presentation of testimony from Dr. Michals would impermissibly allow the Commonwealth to use Appellant’s compelled statements against him. See, e.g., Brief of Appellant at 14 (“Fifth Amendment doctrine, as well as a long history of Pennsylvania decisional law, treat the compelled disclosure of evidence resulting from a psychiatric defense to be a limited one ...”); id. at 23 (arguing that Appellant’s right to testify “was abridged by the threatened use of compelled testimony, testimony that by its nature was inadmissible for all purposes other than to rebut a mental health defense”).1 Similarly, the case law upon which the majority relies predominantly addresses situations in which a defendant’s voluntary statements are used at a second trial. See Commonwealth v. Santiago, 541 Pa. 188, 197-99, 662 A.2d 610, 614-15 (1995) (holding that the defendant could not claim the benefits of the psychiatrist-patient privilege to exclude evi*324dence at a second trial when the privilege had been waived at the first trial because the presentation of psychiatric testimony in support of an insanity defense had been voluntary); Commonwealth v. Boyle, 498 Pa. 486, 498, 447 A.2d 250, 256 (1982) (explaining that a defendant cannot object to having his voluntary testimony used against him because “[h]is constitutional privilege, as far as that testimony is concerned, is waived, and cannot be reclaimed in any subsequent trial of the same indictment”) (quoting Commonwealth v. House, 6 Pa.Super. 92 (1897)).
In segueing to the actual issue in controversy — that is, the authorization of the admission of compelled disclosures — the majority offers the following reasoning:
[T]he Commonwealth was entitled to utilize Dr. Fink’s testimony as substantive evidence, ... the testimony of Dr. Michals clearly could have been utilized in response to those issues implicated by Dr. Fink’s testimony.
Majority Opinion, at 320, 42 A.3d at 997. The majority attempts to bolster this conclusion with an abbreviated, abstracted recitation of the testimony of Drs. Fink and Michals from Appellant’s first trial. See id. at 319-21, 42 A.3d at 997-98.
The majority’s recitation, however, is neither complete nor wholly accurate. Initially, the while the majority asserts that Appellant made “admissions of guilt” to both psychiatrists, in fact he indicated to both that he had no memory of the killing and/or had “blacked out.” See, e.g., N.T. May 1, 2002, at 89 (testimony of Dr. Fink); id. at 140 (testimony of Dr. Michals). Although Appellant’s statements may support the conclusion that he physically stabbed the victim, they do not, in fact, comprise an admission of guilt relative to the charge of first-degree murder.
Moreover, the testimony of Drs. Fink and Michals differed in other material ways. For example, Dr. Fink concluded that Appellant was psychotic and unable to form the specific intent to kill, see N.T., May 1, 2002, at 89-91; whereas, Dr. Michals opined that Appellant’s mental state did not interfere with his *325capacity to form intent, but rather that he simply lied during the psychiatric evaluations, see id. at 137,158.2
Furthermore, the majority opinion seems to sanction the Commonwealth’s impeachment of a witness whose testimony it has presented. See Majority Opinion, at 320, 42 A.3d at 997 (“[I]f Appellant testified on retrial, and the Commonwealth was entitled to utilize Dr. Fink’s testimony as substantive evidence, ... then the testimony of Dr. Michals clearly could have been utilized in response to those issues implicated by Dr. Fink’s testimony.”). This, however, appears to contemplate the Commonwealth’s impeachment of its own witness, which presents an additional analytical hurdle for which the majority does not account, even absent consideration of the fact that the impeachment is via compelled, as opposed to voluntary, disclosures.3
I am sympathetic to the Commonwealth’s argument that Appellant’s claim is vague in character, since it implicates a range of possibilities which never occurred, given that Appellant chose not to testify. As Appellant stresses, however, the *326present review is of a pre-trial ruling compelling his submission to an oral examination, which was of substantial relevance to his own decision-making. Moreover, the Commonwealth chose to go forward with its efforts to obtain authorization to use compelled disclosures; thus, it assumed the risk associated with the ensuing appellate review of such license. In this regard, meritorious preserved claims of trial court error implicate the harmless error standard, pursuant to which the Commonwealth is required to demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the error had no effect on the verdict. See Commonwealth v. Howard, 538 Pa. 86, 100, 645 A.2d 1300, 1307 (1994). Thus, to the degree the trial court erred, as I believe it did,4 it is the Commonwealth’s responsibility, and not Appellant’s, to address the vagaries.5
Finally, I note that the majority rejects the analysis of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Gibbs v. Frank, 387 F.3d 268 (3d Cir.2004) (explaining that the scope of a defendant’s waiver of his right against self-incrimination in connection with a compelled examination must be understood in light of any Miranda-iike warnings issued to the defendant at the time of the examination). See Majority Opinion, at 321, 42 A.3d at 998. I differ with this approach, since warning-type issues have not been briefed in the present case. To the extent the Commonwealth may have wished to rely on such warnings as a basis for the admission of Dr. Michals’ testimony, it seems to me that it should have developed this on the record in the pre-trial proceedings in the second case. Cf. Commonwealth v. Bronshtein, 547 Pa. 460, 473, 691 A.2d 907, 913 (1997) (“The Commonwealth bears the burden of establishing whether a defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his Miranda rights. In order to do so, the Commonwealth must establish that the warnings were given, *327and that the accused manifested an understanding of the warnings.”) (internal citation omitted).

. If it is not clear enough from the above text, my comments are addressed to the arguments presented to this Court, which, of course, define the scope of our present review. See Commonwealth v. Briggs, 608 Pa. 430, 462 n. 19, 12 A.3d 291, 310 n. 19 (2011). Accordingly, the majority's rejoinder, by way of reference to matters presented to the trial court, see Majority Opinion, at 317-18 n. 6, 42 A.3d at 995-96 n. 6, is simply nonresponsive.

. An additional difference in the testimony of the two experts concerns an event that allegedly happened a long time prior to the killing — an event that could have had a significant impact on the jury. Dr. Michals testified that he had "gathered information that the Defendant used a gun while he was involved in a fight when he was 19 or 20 with a boyfriend of a girl he had gotten involved with.” N.T. May 1, 2002, at 144. Dr. Fink, however, did not mention this incident. See id. at 92.

. The majority does not appear to view Appellant’s statements to Dr. Michals as compelled in the first instance, since absent the presentation of a diminished capacity defense, Appellant would not have been subjected to an examination by the Commonwealth's psychiatric expert. See Majority Opinion, at 319 n. 7, 42 A.3d at 996 n. 7. However, the majority, and the caselaw upon which it relies, nonetheless characterize such statements as compelled. See id. at 320, 42 A.3d at 997 ("A defendant who raises a mental health defense can be compelled to submit to a psychiatric examination.”) (citing Commonwealth v. Morley, 545 Pa. 420, 426-27, 681 A.2d 1254, 1257 (1996)). Moreover, I agree with Appellant that the admission of such statements becomes particularly problematic when the Commonwealth seeks to use them at a second trial in which Appellant is not putting his mental status at issue or presenting his own psychiatric expert. Cf. Commonwealth v. Sartin, 561 Pa. 522, 528, 751 A.2d 1140, 1143 (2000) ("The Commonwealth may only utilize the results of its psychological examination in a rebuttal capacity, and only as to those issues which have been implicated by the expert testimony of the defendant’s psychiatrist.”).

. In this regard, I also note that the trial court, like the majority, relied substantially on authorities having to do with voluntary, and not compelled, disclosures. See Trial Court Op. at 6-7.

. Indeed, it seems to me to be very important for the prosecution to make clear on the record the nature and scope of compelled disclosures which it seeks to have admitted.