Jackson v. State, 88-0264

• Citation: 14 Fla. L. Weekly 2857,553 So.2d 719
• Decision Date: 13 December 1989
• Docket Number: No. 88-0264,88-0264
• Parties: 14 Fla. L. Weekly 2857 Theresa JACKSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Florida (US)

Page 719

553 So.2d 719

14 Fla. L. Weekly 2857

Theresa JACKSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 88-0264.

District Court of Appeal of Florida Fourth District.

Dec. 13, 1989.

Richard G. Lubin and Thomas C. Gano of Lubin and Mincberg, P.A., West Palm Beach, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Richard L. Polin, Asst. Atty. Gen., Miami, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

We affirm the judgment of conviction entered on all counts and address only the point raising error in the admission of testimony from the state's expert psychologist which was offered to prove that the appellant was guilty of child abuse, pursuant to section 827.04(1), Florida Statutes (1985).

The expert psychologist specialized in suicidology and, for purposes of this trial, performed a psychological autopsy on appellant's seventeen-year-old daughter who had committed suicide in March of 1986. His testimony explained that a psychological autopsy is a retrospective look at an individual's suicide to try to determine what led that person to choose death over life. In order to make that determination in this case, the expert reviewed the child's school records, the police records surrounding this case, including all of the state's evidence and all of the defendant's statements and medical records, an incident report from an earlier suicide attempt by the child and various testimony from the witnesses appearing at this trial. However he admitted that he did not personally interview any of the witnesses who appeared at trial nor did he ever meet or interview the suicide victim. His opinion, bounded by reasonable psychiatric certainty, was that the nature of the relationship between the defendant and her daughter was a substantial contributing factor in the daughter's decision to commit suicide.

Having reviewed the record, we are satisfied that the state presented sufficient evidence to establish that psychological autopsy is accepted in the field of psychiatry as a method of evaluation for use in cases involving suicide and that the trial judge acted within his discretion in admitting this evidence at trial. Sections 90.402; 90.403; 90.702; 90.704, Fla.Stat. (1987).

With regard to the concerns of the defense that the psychological autopsy was not established as reliable before it was admitted into evidence, we note that such opinions are subjective and therefore the issue of reliability is best left to the jury. Further, we perceive no distinction between the admission of the expert's opinion in this case and, for example, admitting psychiatric opinion evidence to establish a defendant's sanity at the time of committing an offense or to prove the competency of an individual at the time of executing a will. See Morgan v. State, 537 So.2d 973 (Fla.1989); United States v. Edwards, 819 F.2d 262 (11th Cir.1987); see also Kruse v. State, 483 So.2d 1383 (Fla. 4th DCA 1986); Terry v. State, 467 So.2d 761 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985); In re Estate of Hammermann, 387 So.2d 409 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980).

There being no merit to the other arguments raised, we affirm the judgment of conviction.

AFFIRMED.

WALDEN and GUNTHER, JJ., concur.

GLICKSTEIN, J., concurs specially with opinion.

GLICKSTEIN, Judge, concurring specially.

As the parties point out this case raises an issue of first impression. Specifically, the issue is whether a psychological autopsy performed on a suicide victim is proper evidence in a criminal case charging the defendant with child abuse in the form of the defendant causing her seventeen-year-old daughter mental injury by requiring her to work as a strip dancer to earn money, and that the defendant's demands on the child caused her such stress that she took her own life to escape the situation.

I

I agree that we need only address one of the issues raised by appellant on appeal; and that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the testimony of Dr. Douglas George Jacobs.

In Johnson v. State, 393 So.2d 1069, 1072 (Fla.1980), the supreme court said:

The trial court has broad discretion in determining the range of subjects on which an expert witness may be allowed to testify, and, unless there is a clear showing of error, its decision will not be disturbed on appeal.... This discretion, however, is not boundless and expert testimony should be excluded where the facts testified to are of such a nature as not to require any special knowledge or experience in order for the jury to form conclusions from the facts. Nelson v. State, 362 So.2d 1017 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978); Johnson v. State, 314 So.2d 248 (Fla. 1st DCA 1975). The common thread running through all the decisions dealing with the admissibility of expert testimony is the premise that if the disputed issue is beyond the ordinary understanding of the jury, such testimony is admissible.

Sections 90.401, 90.402 and 90.403, Florida Statutes (1987), provide:

90.401 Definition of relevant evidence.--Relevant evidence is evidence tending to prove or disprove a material fact.

90.402 Admissibility of relevant evidence.--All relevant evidence is admissible, except as provided by law.

90.403 Exclusion on grounds of prejudice or confusion.--Relevant evidence is inadmissible if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of issues, misleading the jury, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence. This section shall not be construed to mean that evidence of the existence of available third-party benefits is inadmissible.

Section 90.702, Florida Statutes (1987), provides:

90.702 Testimony by experts.--If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact in understanding the evidence or in determining a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify about it in the form of an opinion; however, the opinion is admissible only if it can be applied to evidence at trial.

Defendant's counsel, to his professional credit, was candid with this court in advising us at oral argument that as early as 1978, testimony similar to that challenged here was admitted in two Arizona criminal cases. ¹

I believe Dr. Jacobs' testimony made the subject matter understandable to the jury; and that without it, they--as I--would have stumbled around in the dark. His testimony revealed that many hospitals require psychological autopsies when there has been a suicide; that as of 1986, there were approximately 30,000 suicides a year in this country, 2,000 of which are in the victim's age bracket; and that the question to be answered was why a particular person would choose death over life.

Dr. Jacobs had worked with a pioneering psychologist at UCLA who had interviewed a number of people who tried--but failed--to take their own lives, whether by jumping from heights or shooting. The inquiry was as to their thoughts and their feelings. In his testimony, he went through numerous factors: namely, purpose--suicide as a solution to a problem of intolerable psychological pain; frustrated needs; hopelessness; helplessness; fragile ambivalence in choosing between life and death; the individual's perceptual attitude on thinking; egression or escape; communication of intention; and consistency of lifelong coping patterns.

He then went through the risk factors in young people's suicides, including a diagnosable mental illness, or general risk factors of vulnerability such as hopelessness, or a history of prior attempts, drug or alcohol abuse, social violation and behavioral difficulties. He described a group, primarily women, who have a diagnosis of depression and, having contemplated suicide for a long time, commit it in the throes of depression. In the completed suicides, the critical element in all of this is the individual's self-worth. He noted the presence of psychological abuse and aloneness or of self-contempt, or murderous rage to drive one to suicide. He closed his general remarks by saying that those in his field--suicidologists--look at specific causes, as well as some type of abuse which lead a vulnerable person to the conditions he described.

Dr. Jacobs then went through the steps that made up the foundation for his expert opinion as to Tina Mancini, the teenage victim here. He brought out her previous suicide attempt at the age of thirteen and her sense of ambivalence at that time by calling her friends for help, her growing up in an atmosphere of several marriages and several moves, her attempts to get away from her mother, the defendant, even contacting the police for help. Her dropping out of school may have been the first sign that she was giving up or giving in to her situation. Dr. Jacobs described Tina's emotional isolation in the last six months, the friend's rejection of her last plea for help on the day of her suicide when she said about the work she felt to be degrading: "I want to get out of what I'm doing." He stated:

And then I made a psychological interpretation of what was being communicated to this young girl when she was asked to do something which one might not ordinarily ask of this child, to work in a place like this just to bring home the money, that your self worth, your value to me, was in the amount of money you could bring home, regardless of how the, how you did that.

And I think this is what I call the, sort of the psychological straightjacket that Tina must have felt herself in, that she couldn't move one way or the other, because this comes up in other cases of abuse, when children, young people, adolescents want to get out of the situation but are so afraid of the consequences they begin to feel trapped.

....

Q Doctor, when we talk of pain, what type of pain are we talking about?

A Well, again, as I tried to describe, we are talking about a combination of feelings. We know she had an argument with her mother. We know that she was bothered and angry and feeling alone. So the...