Court Opinion

ID: 9885165
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:35:00.338809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:45.041328
License: Public Domain

Robert L. Brown, Justice, dissenting. The pivotal issue in this death case is the waiver of the medical privilege by Ashley’s guardian ad litem for Dr. Carnelle Barnes’s records and testimony and whether this waiver extended to the records of a second therapist, Jill Smith. Under these facts, I conclude that the waiver does apply to Smith. The alternative would be to allow Ashley’s guardian and the State to pick and choose which therapist will be most helpful at trial and prevent a less favorable therapist from testifying. The guardian for the key State witness and the State should not be permitted to use the waiver of the medical privilege as a sword to allow the testimony of one therapist and as a shield to prevent that of another. That is what was done at the second trial of Stacey Johnson, and for that reason, I respectfully dissent. Prior to the first trial in 1994, the guardian ad litem for Ashley waived the medical privilege for Dr. Carnelle Barnes, a psychologist, and permitted her to testify. At the competency hearing, Dr. Barnes testified that Ashley would suffer mental damage if she were compelled to testify. She also testified that Ashley could not accurately recall what happened a year ago and that there was a strong possibility her memory was contaminated and diluted by what she had heard and by her dreams. She further stated that Ashley was embellishing on the truth and telling different stories. Based on Dr. Barnes’s testimony and that of the prosecutor, the trial court ruled Ashley incompetent to testify. The prosecutor went to trial with a battery of hearsay witnesses who told the jury what Ashley had told them the day of the murder. Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death. This court reversed that judgment in 1996 and remanded for a new trial because of unreliable hearsay testimony stemming from Ashley’s selection of Johnson from a photo lineup. Johnson v. State, 326 Ark. 430, 934 S.W.2d 179 (1996). Ashley began seeing a new therapist, Jill Smith of the Southwest Arkansas Counseling and Mental Health Center, on November 12, 1996. Her treatment lasted through the second trial which took place in November 1997 and up until April 9, 1998. The guardian ad litem refused to waive the medical privilege for Smith over defense counsel’s strong objection. Indeed, defense counsel even subpoenaed Smith for the retrial, but the trial court quashed the subpoena based on the privilege. The result was that Johnson’s counsel was denied access to Smith’s record and evaluations, while Dr. Barnes was again allowed to testify at the second trial. Why was the Smith information so critical? The short answer is that the prosecution only called Ashley as a witness at the competency hearing before the second trial, and the trial court deemed her competent to testify. Had defense counsel been privy to Jill Smith’s records, he would have been able to delve into Smith’s conclusions that Ashley’s stories were profoundly inconsistent and that she had been under considerable pressure from her family and the prosecutor to convict Stacey Johnson. A sampling of Smith’s notations after therapy sessions with Ashley before the second trial reveals the following: • The DA says she’s the only one who can “keep him behind bars.” • So much of what Ashley says is parroting other family members. For example, she says, “I’m the only one who can put him behind bars.” • Her grandmother told Ashley that she “has to keep him behind bars,” because if he gets out he’ll try to kill Ashley next. • Her grandmother emphasized how much responsibility was on her, and if Johnson’s sentence is overturned, Ashley will feel total responsibility. • Ashley kept wanting to elaborate on what she saw. Atty emphasized to her that all she has to say is that she saw Jason (sic) murder her mom, period.1  Because he was denied access to Smith’s records, defense counsel was unable to confront and cross-examine Ashley on duress and bias due to considerable family and prosecutorial pressure, much less emphasize her unreliability due to inconsistent stories. The majority opinion gives short shrift to the waiver issue. Yet that issue represents the crux of Johnson’s appeal. Rule 510 of the Arkansas Rules of Evidence provides: A person upon whom these rules confer a privilege against disclosure waives the privilege if he or his predecessor while holder of the privilege voluntarily discloses or consents to disclosure of any significant part of the privileged matter. This rule does not apply if the disclosure itself is privileged. By its opinion the majority endorses the State’s position that Ashley’s guardian should be able to pick and choose which therapist will testify and be made available to the defense. That should not be. It stands to reason that if Ashley’s guardian waives the privilege for one key psychotherapist, that waiver should apply to a successive therapist who also treated her to cope with her mother’s savage murder before the second trial. Here, the defense was thwarted in its quest to review the records of Jill Smith, who had conducted the more recent therapy sessions with Ashley and who, without question, would have had a better grasp of her current mental state. The sole support cited by the majority for the State’s unique position is a 1915 civil case in which the issue was the disclosure of privileged information at retrial. See Maryland Casualty Co. v. Maloney, 119 Ark. 434, 178 S.W. 387 (1915). In Maloney, which was a medical malpractice case, the plaintiff/widow did not object to the testimony of certain defense witnesses who were doctors and who testified about her husband’s cause of death. The widow did assert the privilege at the second trial, and we upheld it. Apart from the fact that a civil case does not call into play the fundamental rights and policy considerations inherent in a capital murder trial, Maloney did not involve the State’s waiver of the privilege to shore up grounds for Ashley’s incompetence at the first trial, and then the invocation of the privilege at the second trial to prevent the damaging testimony of a second psychotherapist. The Maloney case is simply not controlling authority. This court has upheld the waiver of a privilege in two recent cases. See Dansby v. State, 338 Ark. 697, 1 S.W.3d 403 (1999) (Dansby waived husband-wife privilege by communicating privileged matter to a third party); Anthony v. State, 332 Ark. 595, 967 S.W.2d 552 (1009) (defendant waived her privilege against self-incrimination by testifying on the matter at the first trial and her prior testimony was admissible at retrial even though the defendant invoked her right to silence at the second trial). Certainly, the Anthony rationale should extend the waiver to Ashley’s second psychotherapist prior to retrial. Nor can it be argued that any error in excluding Jill Smith’s records was harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt. See Chapman v. State of Calfornia, 386 U.S. 18 (1967). Jill Smith did agree with Dr. Barnes that Ashley’s stories were inconsistent, but her notations also support an entirely new basis for attacking Ashley’s credibility. That basis is premised on bias and duress resulting from intense pressure brought to bear on her by family and the prosecutor to convict Johnson. Some jurisdictions have weighed the confidentiality of the privileged information against the right to cross-examine the credibility of a State witness to decide which policy should yield, even when no waiver is involved. See, e.g., Schaefer v. State, 695 So.2d 656 (Ala. Ct. Crim. App. 1996); Bobo v. State, 256 Ga. 357, 349 S.E.2d 690 (1986); State v. McBride, 213 N.J. Super. 255, 517 A.2d 152 (1986). In McBride, the New Jersey Superior Court held that the psychologist-patient privilege may be defeated when common notions of fairness clearly compel at least limited disclosure of otherwise confidential information. And in a case where waiver of the privilege was involved and used as a strategic tool, the Washington Court of Appeals had this to say: In adopting a rale for this jurisdiction we must weigh two varying public policies. On the one hand, the very reason behind the physician-patient relationship is to create an atmosphere of confidence. If the law were otherwise, many needing medical attention might go untreated for fear that what they told the doctor might not remain confidential. On the other hand, if a patient is allowed to pick and choose between physician witnesses and can, by claim of privilege, prevent impeaching testimony from being disclosed to the court, a mockery might be made of justice. State v. Tradewell, 9 Wash. App. 821, 824, 515 P.2d 172, 174 (1973). That “picking and choosing” is exactly what occurred in the case before us. Certainly the extent of any waiver of a privilege must be reviewed by this court on a case-by-case basis for an abuse of discretion. See Schaefer v. State, supra; State v. Storlazzi, 191 Conn. 453, 464 A.2d 829 (1983). But in this case, the waiver of the privilege for Dr. Barnes and then the assertion of it for Jill Smith seem largely a matter of trial strategy. Here, the trial court apparently conducted an in camera review of Smith’s records for mitigating evidence. See State v. McBride, supra. But then the court ordered that Jill Smith’s records be excluded in their entirety. That was an abuse of discretion in my opinion. Under these facts I can only conclude that Johnson was hamstrung in his cross-examination of Ashley and in his defense in general and, thus, was denied his right to a fair trial. Imber and Thornton, JJ„ join.   I acknowledge that these notations of Jill Smith were submitted to this court under seal. Nevertheless, in my judgment these parts of the Smith records should have been made available to Johnson’s counsel for the reasons stated in my dissent.