Court Opinion

ID: 9577819
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:38:28.265506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:20.539670
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with the court in determining that the rebuttal testimony of lay witnesses is admissible and may have been sufficient to raise a jury issue, and further that no sufficiency-of-the-evidence issue was suitably presented.
I differ with the majority in regard to the claimed error of the trial judge in rejecting the proffered testimony of the nonexam-ining psychiatric expert which was tendered to rebut the efficacy of the examining experts’ testimony on the mental illness and deficiency plea.
Although I have serious concern for court control and supervision of expert witnesses as a class of paid professionals, this discussion will be confined to the peculiar status of experts in Wyoming, within the purview of the plea made pursuant to Rule *57015, W.R.Cr.P. and § 7-11-301 et seq., W.S. 1977, and particularly § 7-ll-305(d).
In support of the trial court’s decision to exclude the testimony of the nonexamining psychiatric witness, I will address the difference between rebuttal attack on the validity of procedures utilized by examining experts, described in their testimony, and a general attack on an entire field of academic inquiry.
It is not logical to contend, as did the witness (Coleman), and now the State of Wyoming in this bill of exceptions, that if the witness challenges the validity of specific processes he can also logically deny the validity of all processes without first demonstrating knowledge and expertise about every possible process or combination of processes that may or may not have been utilized by the examining expert witness on the subject of constitutionality and statutorily required absence of mental illness or deficiency.
Found in the syllogistic conclusion is one of the classic fallacies of logic.1
The authorities evaluating logic as a reasoning process have also defined this negative argumentative approach as “scientific crank” logic — the attack of an entire area of expertise as a method to contradict the knowledge and testimony of the individual expert witness. See Salmon, Logic, p. 68 (1963).
Whatever Coleman may consider to be his limits to accomplish determinative evaluations within the field of psychiatry, the Wyoming legislature has determined that the knowledge and techniques of psychiatrists will be used to evaluate the mental illness or deficiency of a criminal defendant, and the United States Supreme Court requires the utilization of psychiatry to afford constitutional rights. Section 7-11-303, W.S.1977; State v. Pressler, 16 Wyo. 214, 92 P. 806 (1907); Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162, 95 S.Ct. 896, 43 L.Ed.2d 103 (1975); Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 105 S.Ct. 1087, 84 L.Ed.2d 53 (1985); Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 86 S.Ct. 836, 15 L.Ed.2d 815 (1966); Bishop v. United States, 350 U.S. 961, 76 S.Ct. 440, 100 L.Ed. 835 (1956); Blake v. Kemp, 1 F.R.S.3d 1263, 758 F.2d 523 (11th Cir.), reh. denied 763 F.2d 419, cert. denied — U.S. -, 106 S.Ct. 374, 88 L.Ed.2d 367, 3 F.R.S.3d 494 (1985).
It is nonsensical to attack an area of expertise when the constitutions, both state and federal, require that an inquiry into that discipline may be necessary to provide individual rights within the criminal justice system.
The broad question presented by the bill of exceptions is whether the trial court has the authority, Lessard v. State, Wyo., 719 P.2d 227 (1986), and Rocky Mountain Trucking Co. v. Taylor, 79 Wyo. 461, 335 P.2d 448 (1959), to deny admission of the testimony of an expert witness when the expert denies the efficacy of previously introduced professional evaluation as an attack on psychiatry in general. I have no doubt that if Coleman had taken each of the methods of evaluation utilized by each of the witnesses for the defense, and first testified as to his professional knowledge and experience with that test or process and finally described its separate invalidity, then the issue presented would have been his credibility and not his competency.
The difference to be recognized is that competency is the threshold requirement— possession of the legal fitness and qualifications to testify, Black’s Law Dictionary, p. 257 (5th ed. 1979), while credibility is the subjective evaluation of the testimony of a competent witness by the fact-finder, Black’s Law Dictionary, supra at 330. The court determines competency and the fact-*571finder assesses credibility. This dissent is postured on that difference.
It would be foolish not to recognize that some inhabitants of the earth still believe that the earth is flat, and that likewise others conceptualize that psychiatry is only slightly preferable to witch-doctoring.
However, the trial court has just so much time to exercise its discretion in trying to provide social justice. Consequently, authority to make reasoned decisions in the broad field of mental illness or deficiency should not be denied. Psychiatry is all that there is, and its use is constitutionally invoked and statutorily defined.2
I would find the decision overbroad in applying the criteria of credibility to the statutory limitation of competency wherein the witness “may [only] testify as to the validity of the procedures followed and the general scientific propositions stated by other witnesses.” ' Section 7-ll-305(d). This statutory language does not afford creation of a “field of competency” to testify that psychiatry is invalid, but only that the particular diagnostic efforts were invalid in concept or application. See Coleman, Psychiatry and Personal Injury: Exposing the Experts, For the Defense, p. 8 (February 8, 1985); Blinder, Psychiatric Analysis in Personal Injury Cases, Trial, p. 75 (May, 1986). The cross-examination techniques outlined in the latter publication are appropriate for impeaching credibility, but the intrinsic question which this court should here consider is competency, and competency should be determined by the trial judge. See Lessard v. State, supra. The witness should be able to make himself incompetent as well as incredible.
We said in Smith v. State, Wyo., 564 P.2d 1194, 1199 (1977):
“ * * * The admission or rejection of expert testimony on a wide range of subjects is a decision solely within the sound discretion of the trial court; and that court’s decision will only be reversed upon a showing of clear and prejudicial abuse. [Citations.]”
In my view, the thrust of Coleman’s testimony — its competency — falls directly within the court’s sound discretion since his testimony did not evaluate the procedures followed and the general scientific proposition stated by the prior psychiatric witnesses and, of significance, did not see the individual involved in order to make some personal assessment for diagnostic purposes. See Lessard v. State, supra.
Equally valid assistance to the jury could likely have been afforded by one or two witch doctors, one or two medicine men, and both the town barber and the female hair stylist. Cf. Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1983), and Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454, 473, 101 S.Ct. 1866, 1878, 68 L.Ed.2d 359 (1981). I do not find compliance with provisions of the Wyoming Constitution, specifically Art. 1, § 6, the due-process clause, from such unreliable testimony. See Note, Evidence — Expert Testimony — Admissibility of Expert Testimony: Wyoming Takes A Moderate Approach, XIX Land & Water L.Rev. 708 (1984). See also McCabe v. R.A. Manning Construction Co., Inc., Wyo., 674 P.2d 699 (1983); Buhrle v. State, Wyo., 627 P.2d 1374 (1981); and Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C.Cir.1923).
“There are good reasons why not every ostensibly scientific technique should be recognized as the basis for expert testimony. Because of its apparent objectivi*572ty, an opinion that claims a scientific basis is apt to carry undue weight with the trier of fact. In addition, it is difficult to rebut such an opinion except by other experts or by cross-examination based on a thorough acquaintance with the underlying principles. In order to prevent deception or mistake and to allow the possibility of effective response, there must be a demonstrable, objective procedure for reaching the opinion and qualified persons who can either duplicate the result or criticize the means by which it was reached, drawing their own conclusions from the underlying facts.” United States v. Baller, 519 F.2d 463, 466 (4th Cir.), cert. denied 423 U.S. 1019, 96 S.Ct. 456, 46 L.Ed.2d 391 (1975).
“Like the insanity defense, the practice whereby the courts call in experts to advise them on matters not generally known to the average person goes back a long time: in English courts, over four centuries. Initially, the experts were used as technical assistants to the court, rather than as witnesses. The judge summoned experts to inform him about technical matters; he then determined whether the information should be passed on to the jury. By the middle of the seventeenth century, when the finding of the facts had become the exclusive province of the jury, the practice of court-appointed experts reporting to the judge was abandoned; instead, the experts were called as witnesses by the parties involved in the dispute.” Simon, The defense of insanity, 11 Journal of Psychiatry and Law 183, 193 (1983).
The article from which the quotation above is taken affords a brief and interesting history of the insanity defense, including the early stated criteria in 1723 of the “wild beast test.” See also Levine, The adversary process and social science in the courts: Barefoot v. Estelle, 12 Journal of Psychiatry and Law, 147,149-150 (1984):
“Expert testimony is admitted at trial because an expert may be able to contribute something beyond what the lay jury or fact finder can determine from the facts. The expert may not only testify to facts, but based upon special knowledge, skill, or experience, the expert may assist the trier of fact to draw inferences from facts. To warrant use of an expert, the ‘subject of the inference must be so distinctively related to some science, profession, business or occupation as to be beyond the ken of the average layman.’ [Cleary, McCormick’s Handbook of the Law of Evidence (2d ed. 1972).]”
The article properly comports with my concern and distills the basis upon which the sound discretion of the trial court to evaluate the proffered testimony should still be afforded.
“In Barefoot v. Estelle, the Supreme Court admitted psychiatric testimony of dangerousness in the death penalty phase of a trial for a capital offense, despite substantial empirical evidence such predictions were more often wrong than right, and despite opposition from the American Psychiatric Association stating that such predictions were scientifically unacceptable and possibly unethical. The Court’s opinion relied on adversary process to protect against the unreliability of expert testimony.” 12 Journal of Psychiatry and Law, supra, synopsis at 147.
See also Chavez v. State, Wyo., 604 P.2d 1341, 1349 (1979), cert. denied 446 U.S. 984, 100 S.Ct. 2967, 64 L.Ed.2d 841 (1980). This court should
“ * * * ‘[recognize] the well established rule that the district court’s determination of whether an expert’s qualifications are established will not be disturbed except in extreme cases or when a clear abuse of discretion is shown,’ referring to Lee v. State, Wyo., 556 P.2d 217 (1976), and Rule 702, W.R.E. Also see Runnion v. Kitts, Wyo., 531 P.2d 1307 (1975).”
I would affirm the trial court’s decision to exclude the proposed Coleman testimony as rebuttal evidence in the insanity inquiry.

. The syllogism may be variously illustrated: Either:
I am an expert about some evaluative processes.
Those processes are invalid.
All evaluative processes are invalid.
Or:
Some evaluative processes are invalid.
Other experts may use .those processes.
The conclusions of those experts are invalid.
This appears to be the fallacy of an undistributed middle term and illicit process of a major or minor term. Chase, Guides to Straight Thinking, p. 205 (1956).

. " * * * The cunning of modern bureaucracy is that it creates a hierarchy in which no one feels personally responsible for anything important that goes wrong. Everywhere I look I see the public mental health system being shaped by this cunning, and legal reform seems to me to have hastened that process. By setting barriers in the path of treatment responsibilities, and by imposing on psychiatrists responsibilities they could not fulfill, legal reform has turned a ratchet that will not easily be turned back. As we pass through the 1980s the great ideological dragon of psychiatry has been coaxed out of its cave. The major legal battles have been fought, and when the dust settled the dragon was gone and all that remained was a collection of hapless civil servants. Yet madness has not gone out of the world as was hoped, in fact madness is more visible than ever before in this century." Stone, Law, Psychiatry, and Morality p. 156 (1984).