Credit Where Credit Is Due
Since our parent site first opened its doors several years back, we've been waiting patiently for the Fourth Circuit to reverse a district court's decision excluding expert testimony under Daubert.
It has been a long wait. As the year 2005 drew toward a close, it hadn't happened in this millennium. In an unbroken string of 32 consecutive decisions, published and unpublished, the Fourth Circuit had affirmed the exclusion of expert evidence every single time.
We now see that the string has been broken at last. With the year winding down, a Fourth Circuit panel finally reversed a trial court's exclusion of expert testimony, for the first time in the 21st century. More impressively still, it reversed the lower court's exclusion of a criminal defendant's evidence on false confessions. See United States v. Belyea, No. 04-4415 (4th Cir. Dec. 28, 2005) (Wilkins, Michael, & Traxler, JJ.).
It took a lot. Here's the gist of the story line as narrated in the Fourth Circuit's opinion.
Michelle invites Joe to a party, at her parents' house in Virginia, where meth is freely consumed. Despite the drug consumption, the party eventually disperses without apparent incident. Only after a year goes by does Michelle's dad discover that three handguns are missing from the hope chest in the master bedroom. Dad promptly calls the cops, who run a computer check and discover that two of the guns have been retrieved from a D.C. drug dealer's car in a search.
ATF swoops in and questions the partygoers, including Joe. When Joe's memory seems a little shaky, the ATF agent decides to lie to him a little. The agent tells Joe that one of the guns has been used in a murder (not true). He also tells Joe that the gun in question bears Joe's fingerprint (also not true). With Joe's anxiety now mounting visibly, the agent decides to close the deal, and tells Joe that they already have enough to hold him as a material witness -- not in fair Virginia, mind you, but in a D.C. jail where "a skinny white boy like you won't last very long." Joe deems it prudent to confess, and he is charged with possessing a weapon while under the influence of a controlled substance.
At trial, Joe recants. He wants to offer expert testimony from Dr. Solomon Fulero, to the effect that people sometimes offer false confessions in the hope of escaping anxiety-provoking threats, such as a murder charge and/or gang rape. The trial judge rebuffs this proffer, on the stated basis that "jurors know people lie."
Michelle tries to come to Joe's aid, after a fashion. She testifies at trial that she took Joe and her boyfriend Kevin to dad's bedroom so they could break into the hope chest, get her savings bonds, and use them to buy more meth. She says nobody touched the guns. But her protests are unavailing, in the face of Joe's confession that he took the guns and gave them to Kevin to barter for drugs. The jury convicts.
Four of Kevin's acquaintances now come forth to tell a very different story. According to them, Michelle's boyfriend has repeatedly boasted that it was he, and he alone, who took the guns, on a completely separate occasion, without anyone else's knowledge or participation, sometime after the party. When Joe presents their testimony and moves for a new trial, the judge refuses, on the theory that the new evidence doesn't disprove the jury's verdict that Joe "possessed the firearms before they were stolen."
The Fourth Circuit panel saw red, of course, because no evidence, except for Joe's confession, linked him to the guns in any way. The panel's opinion concludes that jurors do not necessarily know that people will lie to their own detriment by confessing to crimes they didn't commit. On remand, the trial court is supposed to have another go at evaluating the admissibility of the expert testimony on false confessions. It's also supposed to take a harder look at that motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence.
We doubt Joe enjoyed being called a skinny white boy. But in retrospect, maybe he'll count himself lucky that it happened. It helped to buy him another shot, from a Fourth Circuit that doesn't dole them out liberally.
For our part, we applaud the panel for doing the right thing. Now if only the decision were published . . . .
It has been a long wait. As the year 2005 drew toward a close, it hadn't happened in this millennium. In an unbroken string of 32 consecutive decisions, published and unpublished, the Fourth Circuit had affirmed the exclusion of expert evidence every single time.
We now see that the string has been broken at last. With the year winding down, a Fourth Circuit panel finally reversed a trial court's exclusion of expert testimony, for the first time in the 21st century. More impressively still, it reversed the lower court's exclusion of a criminal defendant's evidence on false confessions. See United States v. Belyea, No. 04-4415 (4th Cir. Dec. 28, 2005) (Wilkins, Michael, & Traxler, JJ.).
It took a lot. Here's the gist of the story line as narrated in the Fourth Circuit's opinion.
Michelle invites Joe to a party, at her parents' house in Virginia, where meth is freely consumed. Despite the drug consumption, the party eventually disperses without apparent incident. Only after a year goes by does Michelle's dad discover that three handguns are missing from the hope chest in the master bedroom. Dad promptly calls the cops, who run a computer check and discover that two of the guns have been retrieved from a D.C. drug dealer's car in a search.
ATF swoops in and questions the partygoers, including Joe. When Joe's memory seems a little shaky, the ATF agent decides to lie to him a little. The agent tells Joe that one of the guns has been used in a murder (not true). He also tells Joe that the gun in question bears Joe's fingerprint (also not true). With Joe's anxiety now mounting visibly, the agent decides to close the deal, and tells Joe that they already have enough to hold him as a material witness -- not in fair Virginia, mind you, but in a D.C. jail where "a skinny white boy like you won't last very long." Joe deems it prudent to confess, and he is charged with possessing a weapon while under the influence of a controlled substance.
At trial, Joe recants. He wants to offer expert testimony from Dr. Solomon Fulero, to the effect that people sometimes offer false confessions in the hope of escaping anxiety-provoking threats, such as a murder charge and/or gang rape. The trial judge rebuffs this proffer, on the stated basis that "jurors know people lie."
Michelle tries to come to Joe's aid, after a fashion. She testifies at trial that she took Joe and her boyfriend Kevin to dad's bedroom so they could break into the hope chest, get her savings bonds, and use them to buy more meth. She says nobody touched the guns. But her protests are unavailing, in the face of Joe's confession that he took the guns and gave them to Kevin to barter for drugs. The jury convicts.
Four of Kevin's acquaintances now come forth to tell a very different story. According to them, Michelle's boyfriend has repeatedly boasted that it was he, and he alone, who took the guns, on a completely separate occasion, without anyone else's knowledge or participation, sometime after the party. When Joe presents their testimony and moves for a new trial, the judge refuses, on the theory that the new evidence doesn't disprove the jury's verdict that Joe "possessed the firearms before they were stolen."
The Fourth Circuit panel saw red, of course, because no evidence, except for Joe's confession, linked him to the guns in any way. The panel's opinion concludes that jurors do not necessarily know that people will lie to their own detriment by confessing to crimes they didn't commit. On remand, the trial court is supposed to have another go at evaluating the admissibility of the expert testimony on false confessions. It's also supposed to take a harder look at that motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence.
We doubt Joe enjoyed being called a skinny white boy. But in retrospect, maybe he'll count himself lucky that it happened. It helped to buy him another shot, from a Fourth Circuit that doesn't dole them out liberally.
For our part, we applaud the panel for doing the right thing. Now if only the decision were published . . . .
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