People v. Goldstein

• Citation: 6 N.Y.3d 119,843 N.E.2d 727
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Andrew GOLDSTEIN, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 20 December 2005
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

843 N.E.2d 727

6 N.Y.3d 119

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Andrew GOLDSTEIN, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

December 20, 2005.

Legal Aid Society, Criminal Appeals Bureau, New York City (Natalie Rea and Laura R. Johnson of counsel), for appellant.

Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York City (Morrie I. Kleinbart and Patrick J. Hynes of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

R.S. SMITH, J.

We reverse defendant's conviction and order a new trial, because his constitutional right to be confronted with the witnesses against him was violated when a psychiatrist who testified for the prosecution recounted statements made to her by people who were not available for cross-examination.

Facts and Procedural History

On January 3, 1999, defendant killed Kendra Webdale, a woman he did not know, by throwing her into the path of an approaching subway train. He was charged with murder in the second degree; his principal defense was insanity. His first trial ended in a hung jury.

At his second trial, the two main witnesses were forensic psychiatrists, Spencer Eth, called by the defense, and Angela Hegarty, called by the prosecution. These doctors agreed that defendant was mentally ill; he had been diagnosed as schizophrenic some 10 years before the act for which he was on trial, and had been treated in a number of mental hospitals in the interim. The doctors disagreed, however, on the role that defendant's mental illness played in the killing.

In Eth's opinion, defendant pushed Kendra Webdale to her death "when he was suffering an acute exacerbation . . . of severe psychotic symptoms," perhaps resulting from a failure to take prescribed antipsychotic medications. Eth testified that the symptoms were so extreme that defendant "couldn't plan, he couldn't intend, he couldn't know as we understand what know means what he was doing or that it was wrong." Hegarty, by contrast, found that defendant had a "relatively mild" disorder "in the schizophrenic spectrum" and that his psychotic symptoms "were substantially in remission" at the time of the killing. Hegarty also testified that defendant's personality had "antisocial" features that were more relevant to his act than his schizophrenia. She testified, in substance, that defendant was a predator, driven to acts of violence against women by feelings of rejection and sexual frustration, who was using his schizophrenia as an excuse for his actions. Both doctors supported their opinions by describing their own examinations of defendant and by reviewing voluminous clinical records.

The main issue on this appeal arises because Hegarty's testimony also described another category of information — facts she had obtained in interviews of third parties. According to Hegarty, her field of expertise, "forensic psychiatry," could be distinguished from more traditional "clinical psychiatry," which "would largely . . . confine itself to what the defendant would say. And maybe the clinical record." The purpose of forensic psychiatry, Hegarty testified, is "to get to the truth," and she made clear that she believes interviews of people with firsthand knowledge are an important way of accomplishing that goal.

Over objection, Hegarty was permitted to tell the jury what she was told by six of her interviewees. The statements thus relayed from four of these people — whom we will call John P., Kimberly D., Serita G. and Isaac V. — are important to our decision.

John P. was a security guard at Waldbaum's in late 1996, about two years before the fatal attack on Kendra Webdale, when defendant assaulted a woman who was shopping there. John P. restrained defendant immediately after the assault, and he described to Hegarty, who repeated to the jury, defendant's reaction when he was seized. According to Hegarty's account of John P.'s statement, defendant said "I'm sick, I'm sick, I'm schizophrenic," kept repeating those assertions, and said that he had just got out of the hospital. Defendant made a similar statement — "I'm psychotic, take me to the hospital," or words to that effect — immediately after throwing Kendra Webdale to her death. John P.'s statement thus supported Hegarty's and the prosecution's theory that defendant had repeatedly used his schizophrenia to minimize his misconduct and avoid punishment.

Kimberly D. was the girlfriend of a man who shared an apartment with defendant in November 1998 — about two months before Kendra Webdale's death — when Stephanie H., the girlfriend of another resident, visited the apartment. Hegarty testified that Kimberly D. had told Hegarty that Stephanie H., who worked in a strip club, "would tease" defendant. Hegarty also testified, apparently still recounting what Kimberly D. said to her, that Stephanie H. "bears a rather remarkable similarity [in] appearance to Kendra Webdale." Thus, Hegarty suggested to the jury that defendant identified the woman he killed with another woman who had frustrated him sexually.

Serita G. had been defendant's landlady twice, first in 1996 and then in 1998-1999 up to the date of Kendra Webdale's death. According to Hegarty, Serita G. told her "that on one occasion . . . her maid went downstairs and the defendant was lying on his bed exposed and he didn't cover himself." This was part of the basis for Hegarty's testimony that defendant had "been sexually inappropriate with women."

Isaac V. was one of defendant's roommates in the month preceding Kendra Webdale's death. Hegarty testified to Isaac V.'s description of defendant's personality: She said that Isaac V. said that defendant was "a little weird . . . didn't act his age . . . wanted to go to college and. . . wanted to be somebody . . . was never disrespectful and never violent and very calm." This description corroborated Hegarty's overall picture of defendant as someone suffering from a relatively mild mental illness, not a hopelessly out-of-control schizophrenic.

The jury convicted defendant of second degree murder, thus rejecting his insanity defense. The Appellate Division affirmed. We now reverse.

Discussion

Defendant argues that Hegarty's testimony recounting statements of interviewees was inadmissible hearsay under New York law, because the People failed to show that the statements were information of a kind commonly relied on by members of Hegarty's profession. Defendant also argues that the admission of the interviewees' statements violated his constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him. We reject defendant's New York law argument, but we agree that his right to confrontation was violated.

I

People v. Stone, 35 N.Y.2d 69, 358 N.Y.S.2d 737, 315 N.E.2d 787 [1974] and People v. Sugden, 35 N.Y.2d 453, 363 N.Y.S.2d 923, 323 N.E.2d 169 [1974] govern the question of when a psychiatrist's opinion may be received in evidence, even though some of the information on which it is based is inadmissible hearsay. As we explained in Sugden, a psychiatrist "may rely on material, albeit of out-of-court origin, if it is of a kind accepted in the profession as reliable in forming a professional opinion," or if it "comes from a witness subject to full cross-examination on the trial" (35 N.Y.2d at 460, 461, 363 N.Y.S.2d 923, 323 N.E.2d 169). The latter ground for admissibility does not apply here; defendant had no opportunity to cross-examine the interviewees whose statements are in issue. Defendant argues that the former ground is inapplicable also, because the prosecution failed to meet its burden of showing that the interviewees' statements were "material . . . of a kind accepted in the profession as reliable."

We disagree. The proponent's burden of showing acceptance in the profession may be met through the testimony of a qualified expert, whether or not that expert is the same one who seeks to rely on the out-of-court material. Here, the People's burden was met by Hegarty's testimony. Hegarty acknowledged that "traditionally" psychiatrists did not rely on interviews with third parties, but said that "several researchers, forensic psychiatrists, past presidents of the Academy of Psychiatry and Law, Park Dietz and Philip Resnick, for example" had emphasized the need for a broader approach. While she acknowledged that "not everybody holds this view" and that "many good forensic psychiatrists might . . . disagree," she testified that interviewing of third parties is "becoming more and more the practice." She added that the seeking out of facts from sources other than defendant's own statements and the clinical record is "very, very much supported in the literature."

Any imprecision in Hegarty's description of accepted professional practice could have been explored on cross-examination; defendant's counsel was free to ask Hegarty, for example, exactly what "literature" she was referring to, and to try to show it did not support her procedure. But Hegarty's statements on this issue were neither made the subject of cross-examination nor contradicted by any other evidence. Indeed, Eth acknowledged that Hegarty's preferred approach was accepted by some reputable professionals, though he said they were a "minority." The prosecution did not have to prove that the materials in question were universally accepted; widespread acceptance by professionals of good reputation is enough. The case would be different if the procedures at issue found support only among a faction of outliers not generally respected by their colleagues. But in this case, the trial court had a sufficient basis for finding that the third-party interviews were material of a kind accepted in the profession as reliable, and that therefore Hegarty's opinion was admissible under Stone and Sugden.

II

To avoid any misinterpretation of our holding, we point out the existence of a New York law issue that the parties have not addressed and we do not reach.

We have held in section I only that Hegarty's opinion, although based in part on statements made...