Court Opinion

ID: 9431317
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:31:59.208786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:27.971479
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I join Part II of Justice Marshall’s concurring opinion because I agree that harmless-error analysis is inappropriate where the error is a Sixth Amendment violation under Estelle v. Smith, 451 U. S. 454 (1981), which results in the erroneous admission of psychiatric testimony in a capital-sentencing proceeding. The situation is particularly acute where, under a system such as that of Texas, the jury must answer the very question that the psychiatrist purports to *268answer. I am fortified in this conclusion by my continuing concern — wholly apart from the testimony of the ubiquitous Doctor Grigson in Texas capital cases — about the reliability of psychiatric testimony as to a defendant’s future dangerousness (wrong two times out of three). See Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U. S. 880, 916 (1983) (dissenting opinion).