olumnist Art Buchwald recently asked, “What makes a good [expert] witness?” His response: “It’s someone who swears to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and then spends the rest of his time on the stand lying through his teeth.” Testimony from “experts” in the psychiatric and psychological fields regarding motives, states of mind and other behavioral factors is the most dubious and controversial of all such testimony-for-hire, and also one of the most common. Anthony Oliver, an authority on psychiatric testimony, likens such experts to prostitutes. He said that too many unscrupulous experts are testifying in court with the deliberate intention to mislead. According to Oliver, addressing a conference on law and mental health, “Manipulation of the jury is the name of the game.”
Professor Michael E. Tigar of the University of Texas noted that, for a fee, large numbers of “experts” will be happy to conjure up virtually any testimony. He pointed out that while these experts claim their testimony is based on fact, it can be, and in reality often is, fanciful and exaggerated.
Part of the problem, of course, is that a paid witness has been hired to present testimony favorable to whichever party is footing the bill for the expert’s time and theories. But underlying the problem of psychiatric testimony is the failure of psychiatrists to know what they themselves are talking about. By their own admission, psychiatrists lack any ability to predict dangerous or violent behavior, as a notable example.
The mental “expert” problem has grown to such massive proportions that it is simultaneously outrageous and ludicrous. To make that point, New Mexico state senator Duncan Scott proposed a legislative amendment addressing the state’s licensing guidelines for psychiatrists and psychologists earlier this year. “When a psychologist or psychiatrist testifies during a defendant’s competency hearing,” the bill read, “the psychologist or psychiatrist shall wear a cone-shaped hat that is not less than two feet tall. The surface of the hat shall be imprinted with stars and lightning bolts.... [He] shall be required to don a white beard that is not less than 18 inches in length, and shall punctuate crucial elements of his testimony by stabbing the air with a wand [and] the bailiff shall dim the courtroom lights and administer two strikes to a Chinese gong.” While the state senate approved the amendment, it was rejected by the New Mexico House of Representatives in March, 1995.
The real problem goes back to Art Buchwald’s question.
What is a good expert witness? The answer is simple. It is an experienced professional in a field relevant to issues in the case, who can testify to visible, observable facts and interpret them to the judge or jury from his knowledge and experience. A medical expert who interprets a lab report to identify a type of blood or a lab technician who identifies fingerprints are both examples. But a psychiatrist does not fit such a description. He seeks to testify as to things which cannot be seen — the “state” of someone’s mind, whether he is suffering from some “disorder,” or whether he may or may not engage in certain future conduct.
The American Psychiatric Association itself filed a statement with the United States Supreme Court which declared psychiatrists to be incapable of such predictions. The report stated, “The professional literature uniformly establishes that such predictions are fundamentally of very low reliability, and that psychiatric testimony and expertise are irrelevant to such predictions.” Psychologist William Winslade pointed out, “We ask the expert in this area, a psychiatrist, to rescue us from this troublesome area of judging our fellow citizens and their actions.... He has obligingly provided us with his own confusion ... in an appealing, ‘expert’ way, with ‘special’ language and ‘special’ tests to validate his ‘special’ knowledge.”
“Unfortunately,” Winslade concluded, “it takes more than tests and fancy language to create special, expert knowledge.”
Psychiatric Testimony Ruins Lives
Many people are becoming increasingly cognizant of the ruined lives, broken families and injustices caused by psychiatric testimony.
The child molestation trial of seven teachers at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, for instance, was recently the subject of a television docudrama. The trial cost $15 million, stretched seven years from initial accusations to final verdicts, and devastated those involved — not one of whom was ever found guilty of a single charge. (See “The Psychiatric Subversion of Justice”)
Some judges are aware of psychiatrically spawned abuses and are acting to prevent or correct the damage.
Judge Jeffrey V. Boles of the Hendricks Circuit Court in Danville, Indiana, for example, prevented a tragic separation of child and parents that almost occurred due to psychiatric testimony.
Professor Michael E. Tigar of the University of Texas noted that, for a fee, large numbers of “experts” will be happy to conjure up virtually any testimony. He pointed out that while these experts claim their testimony is based on fact, it can be, and in reality often is, fanciful and exaggerated. |
In his ruling, Judge Boles criticized the psychiatric testimony presented to him: “No believable facts were ever proven to support these allegations....
“As judges, we must remember that testimony from those who are self-interested is suspect. This is an essential fact the courts must keep in mind so that the litigation process is not co-opted by emerging psychiatric theories not grounded in appropriate validation and based on subjective belief or unsupported speculation.
“...The courtroom cannot become a laboratory for social experimentation especially when the advocates seek to destroy a family based upon weak and unproven theories.”
What Judge Boles characterized as “weak and unproven theories” are at the root of the problem with psychiatric “expert” testimony. Such testimony is merely theory — in fact, opinion masquerading as evidence. It has no more validity than testimony provided in the Middle Ages by doctors who claimed to be able to identify a person as a witch by examining marks on the body. Based on the testimony of these “witch doctors,” thousands of innocent people were condemned to death and burned alive.
There is no place in the expert witness box for the purely opinionated incantations of a psychiatrist on what a person may or may not have been thinking and how these thoughts excuse his actions. A person’s actions are his or her responsibility.
Psychiatric testimony has turned our courtrooms into Alice-in-Wonderland scenes of unreality and farce. Worse, it condemns the innocent and lets the guilty go free.
With 18 million new lawsuits every year, the courts are clogged and getting more so each month. Psychiatric witnesses, who can be paid thousands of dollars a day for valueless testimony, contribute to this glut, prolonging litigation and driving the costs of justice higher.
Now is the time to eradicate this plague of unscientific opinion from the courts.
