U.S. v. Hayes

• Decision Date: 26 April 2000
• Docket Number: No. 98-6623,98-6623
• Parties: (6th Cir. 2000) United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Roy Lee Hayes, Defendant-Appellee. Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 578

227 F.3d 578 (6th Cir. 2000)

United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Roy Lee Hayes, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 98-6623

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

Argued: April 26, 2000

Decided and Filed: September 14, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Greeneville. No. 98-00012--Thomas G. Hull, District Judge.

Sarah R. Shults, ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greeneville, Tennessee, for Appellant.

John T. Milburn Rogers, J. Gregory Bowman, ROGERS, LAUGHLIN, NUNNALLY, HOOD & CRUM, Greeneville, Tennessee, for Appellee.

Before: RYAN and BOGGS, Circuit Judges; DUGGAN, District Judge.^*

RYAN, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which DUGGAN, D. J., joined. BOGGS, J. (pp. 587-89), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

RYAN, Circuit Judge.

In this appeal, we are required to decide whether there is a "dangerous patient" exception to the federal psychotherapist/patient testimonial privilege under Fed. R. Evid. 501. We hold there is not.

The United States seeks to prosecute the defendant Roy Lee Hayes under 18 U.S.C. § 115 for making threats, during several psychotherapy sessions, to murder his supervisor at the United States Postal Service. Shortly after being indicted, Hayes filed a motion to suppress medical records prepared by his psychotherapists, and to exclude his therapist's expected testimony, on the ground that the medical records and testimony were privileged. The district court granted Hayes's motion to suppress and, soon thereafter, dismissed the indictment. We will affirm.

I.

Aside from a period of military service, Hayes has worked for the United States Postal Service his entire adult life. In July 1996, Veda Odle assumed the position of postmaster in Marion, Virginia, and, consequently, interacted regularly with Hayes, who was the union steward for that post office branch.

Beginning in 1997, Hayes began to behave erratically at work, at times becoming inconsolably depressed and unable to function. On February 9, 1998, after several episodes of irregular behavior, Hayes sought professional help at the Veterans Administration Mountain Home Hospital (MHH), Johnson City, Tennessee. The admitting diagnosis for Hayes was major depression accompanied by severe psychotic features. During treatment, Hayes informed Dr. Dianne Hansen of a desire to kill Odle, a desire Hayes claimed he could resist only because he "recognized" that such action could jeopardize his continued employment. Dr. Hansen released Hayes on February 18, instructing him to contact a local health care provider and to return to work on February 23. Although records at MHH indicate plans to warn Odle of the potential threat Hayes posed, it is undisputed that Odle never received any warning from the staff at MHH.

On February 22, Hayes returned to MHH, admitting himself as an in-patient for several days. During this stay, Hayes reiterated his homicidal inclinations, but MHH doctors concluded that he was capable of controlling himself and understanding the consequences of his actions. Consequently, on February 26, MHH again released Hayes with a prescription for various psychotropic drugs.

On March 10, 1998, Hayes went to the Veterans Center in Johnson City, Tennessee, to discuss his problems with social worker James Edward Van Dyke. Van Dyke claims to have advised Hayes that he, Van Dyke, had a duty to warn affected third parties should he determine that Hayes posed a serious threat to himself or others. Although Hayes revealed to Van Dyke that he planned to murder Odle and described in some detail how he would do so, Van Dyke concluded that Hayes was not a serious threat to Odle and allowed him to leave after Hayes agreed to return for additional therapy on March 31.

On March 24, 1998, because Hayes was experiencing certain undesirable side effects from the drugs he was taking, Dr. Hansen discontinued Hayes's prescriptions. Soon thereafter, apparently due to the termination of his prescriptions, the death of his uncle, and sleep deprivation prior to undergoing an EEG on March 31, Hayes began to experience increased anxiety and some unraveling of his previous self restraint.

On the evening of March 31, Hayes attended a session with Van Dyke at the Veterans Center. At that time, Hayes outlined in great detail his plan to kill Odle, describing the layout of Odle's home and explaining that he knew when she would be home alone. According to Van Dyke, during this visit, he again advised Hayes that his serious threats toward Odle could not be kept confidential. When the session concluded, however, Van Dyke allowed Hayes to leave for a therapy appointment at MHH. Van Dyke took no further action that evening.

The next day, Van Dyke spoke with a supervisor about Hayes's statements and the supervisor advised contacting the Veterans Center's legal counsel for advice on how to handle this potentially dangerous situation. Counsel for the Veterans Center informed Van Dyke that he had a legal obligation to warn Odle of the threat that Hayes posed, and a short time later Van Dyke did so.

Upon receipt of Van Dyke's warning, Odle understandably became frightened and immediately contacted Postal Inspector Terrance Vlug, who requested all of Hayes's medical records from Van Dyke. Van Dyke provided the records which disclosed Hayes's repeated homicidal statements. Vlug then filed a criminal complaint on April 3, 1998, charging Hayes with threatening to murder a federal official in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 115.

A grand jury issued a three-count indictment against Hayes, charging that, on three occasions, Hayes's murderous remarks to psychotherapists constituted criminal wrongdoing under 18 U.S.C. § 115(a)(1), which provides, in pertinent part:

Whoever . . . threatens to assault, kidnap, or murder, a United States official . . . with intent to impede, intimidate, or interfere with such official . . . while engaged in the performance of official duties, or with intent to retaliate against such official . . . on account of the performance of official duties, shall be punished[.]

18 U.S.C. § 115(a)(1).

After a judicial determination that Hayes was competent to stand trial and discussion on various preliminary motions, Hayes filed a motion to dismiss the indictment and to suppress his medical records and any testimony from his psychotherapists, asserting the psychotherapist/patient privilege.

A magistrate judge recommended dismissing the first two counts of the indictment because those alleged threats had never been disclosed to Odle by doctors at MHH. The magistrate judge concluded, however, that the "threat" revealed to Odle by Van Dyke was not privileged because that revelation was the "only means" of averting harm to Odle. Thus, the magistrate judge recommended denying Hayes's motion as it pertained to the third count of the indictment.

The district court accepted this recommendation and, going even further, ordered suppression of any testimony by Van Dyke. Citing United States v. Glass, 133 F.3d 1356 (10th Cir. 1998), the district court held that a psychotherapist may testify as to otherwise privileged statements of threats allegedly made by a patient only where such "disclosure was the only means of averting harm to the [federal official] when the disclosure was made." Id. at 1360. The district court held that any communications made to psychotherapists at MHH remained privileged because those doctors had never disclosed to third parties the substance of their therapy sessions with Hayes. Based on Van Dyke's admissions that he considered no option other than disclosure to protect Odle and, in fact, disclosed Hayes's statements only because of an order from a supervisor, the district court held that Van Dyke could not testify since his disclosure was not "the only means of averting harm." Accordingly, the court granted Hayes's motion to exclude the testimony of his psychotherapists whose information formed the basis of the indictment. Soon thereafter, the district court dismissed the case, an order which the government timely appealed.

II.

The Federal Rules of Evidence leave the establishment of testimonial privileges to the federal courts:

Except as otherwise . . . provided by Act of Congress or in rules prescribed by the Supreme Court pursuant to statutory authority, the privilege of a witness, person, government, State, or political subdivision thereof shall be governed by the principles of the common law as they may be interpreted by the courts of the United States in the light of reason and experience.

Fed. R. Evid. 501. Accordingly, we review de novo the district court's analysis of the contours of the psychotherapist/patient privilege. See In re Zuniga, 714 F.2d 632, 637 (6th Cir. 1983).

A psychotherapist/patient evidentiary privilege has been well-established in the Sixth Circuit for some time. See id. at 641. The Supreme Court recently recognized the privilege in Jaffee, holding that "confidential communications between a licensed psychotherapist and her patients in the course of diagnosis or treatment are protected from compelled disclosure under Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence." Jaffee v. Redmond, 518 U.S. 1, 15 (1996). The Court observed that recognizing as privileged psychotherapist/patient discussions in the course of therapy would likely facilitate "an atmosphere of confidence and trust" conducive to meaningful treatment. Id. at 10. The Court also reasoned that a federal psychotherapist/patient privilege would "serv[e] public ends" as "[t]he mental health of [the American citizen] . . . is a public good of transcendent importance." Id. at 11. The Court observed that all 50 States and the District of Columbia had "enacted into law some form of psychotherapist privilege." Id. at 12. The Court rejected a "balancing component . . . [m]aking the promise of confidentiality contingent upon a trial judge's later...