State v. J.R.C.

47 Misc. 3d 969, 7 N.Y.S.3d 866
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 25, 2015
StatusPublished

This text of 47 Misc. 3d 969 (State v. J.R.C.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. J.R.C., 47 Misc. 3d 969, 7 N.Y.S.3d 866 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Robert B. Wiggins, J.

In this proceeding pursuant to article 10 of the Mental Hygiene Law, respondent moves, inter alia, to preclude the State’s experts from using various records in forming their opinions as to whether he suffers from a mental abnormality. He bases this application on the Court of Appeals decision in Matter of State of New York v Floyd Y (22 NY3d 95 [2013]) as well as cases interpreting the “professional reliability” exception to the hearsay rule, in particular those dealing with the reliability of material that an expert may rely on in forming a professional opinion — so-called “basis evidence” (see e.g. Hambsch v New York City Tr. Auth., 63 NY2d 723 [1984]; Wagman v Bradshaw, 292 AD2d 84, 87 [2d Dept 2002]). For the following reasons, the court denies the motion.

In the recent case of Matter of State of New York v William F. (44 Misc 3d 338 [Sup Ct, NY County 2014]), the court denied a similar motion by a respondent in an article 10 case. Judge Conviser in that case reviewed the case law on the professional reliability exception, as well as Floyd Y., and concluded that, while the reliability of evidence upon which an expert bases his opinion is “primarily a question for the court,” the input of the experts themselves on this question “is vital” (id. at 348). While this court is not in full agreement with the analysis in William F, it is in full agreement with that court’s conclusion that the question of what records experts may properly rely upon in forming their opinions can not be answered without input from the experts themselves.

At the outset, it is important to differentiate between the concept of reliability as delineated in Floyd Y, and the concept of reliability in the context of the professional reliability exception. Floyd Y. dealt only with the issue of the extent to which the basis of an expert’s testimony could be put before the jury. [971]*971It did not even purport to deal with the question of what material not disclosed to the jury may properly be relied upon in forming an expert opinion. That differentiation requires some discussion of the historical backdrop of the professional reliability exception.

Historically, experts at trial could base their opinions only upon evidence in the record, or evidence personally known to them (see Cassano v Hagstrom, 5 NY2d 643 [1959]). This created a conflict, because experts, in plying their own trades, often relied on material that would not be admissible in a court of law, including hearsay statements that they, in their field, determined were reliable enough to base their opinions on. Thus, an expert in court could not base his opinion on the same material that he would use in formulating his opinion in his field of work.

Courts and commentators had noted this conflict for some time; indeed, as early as 1897, the Second Circuit allowed an expert to base his opinion on facts contained in a learned treatise (Western Assur. Co. of Toronto v J.H. Mohlman Co., 83 F 811 [2d Cir 1897]), a ruling that the Harvard Law Review considered “an entirely novel point,” which “ought to attract considerable notice” (Note, Scientific Books as Evidence, 11 Harv L Rev 332, 332 [1897]). Recognizing the conflict, by the early 1970s a growing minority of jurisdictions had liberalized the rule with regard to basis evidence (see Edward J. Imwinkelried, The New Federal Rules of Evidence — Part II, 1973-May Army Law 1, Dept of Army Pamphlet 27-50-5; Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Judicial Conference of the District of Columbia Circuit, 61 FRD 147, 219-220 [1973]). Federal Rules of Evidence rule 703, which was adopted along with the original Federal Rules of Evidence in 1975, adopted the then minority rule, providing that, in formulating their opinions, experts could use outside evidence, even if it would “not be admissible in evidence,” so long as it was “of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field in forming opinions or inferences upon the subject” (Fed Rules Evid former rule 703, as added by Pub L 93-595, 88 US Stat 1926).

In 1974, the Court of Appeals, clearly influenced by federal rule 703, which was in the proposal stage at the time, adopted the same rule in New York, in People v Sugden (35 NY2d 453 [1974]). The Sugden Court formulated what would come to be known in New York as the professional reliability exception thusly: an expert “may rely on material, albeit of out-of-court [972]*972origin, if it is of a kind accepted in the profession as reliable in forming a professional opinion” (id. at 460). The question of what is considered “reliable in forming a professional opinion,” and the related question of how much of a gatekeeping role the court assumes in making this determination, are ones upon which various courts have come to differing conclusions. Professor Michael Graham, in his commentary in the Handbook of Federal Evidence, says that “courts are loosely divided into two camps” in this regard — the “restrictive” camp and the “liberal” camp (Michael Graham, Federal Evidence § 703:1 n 14 [7th ed 2014]). Both camps “agree that the trial judge must decide whether the data on which the expert relied is of a type reasonably relied upon in his field of expertise” (id.). Under the “liberal approach” (id.), there is no further inquiry made; if the judge determines that experts ordinarily rely upon any given outside data in forming an opinion — which determination can, and normally is, based largely upon the opinion of the experts themselves — then no further inquiry is made as to the underlying reliability of the outside data. By contrast,

“the restrictive camp imposes a further requirement: it reassesses the underlying material to determine whether it would have been excluded as hearsay for reasons bearing on reliability, and if so finds that the expert could not reasonably have relied on it, even though [the expert] shows that this is the type of material on which he relies in his nontestifying, working life” (id.).

Another commentator refers to the “liberal” approach as the “limited gatekeeper” approach, and the “restrictive” approach as the “active gatekeeper” approach (see 29 Charles Alan Wright and et al., Federal Practice and Procedure Evidence § 6274 [1st ed]). Respondent urges the court to utilize the restrictive, or active gatekeeper approach, while the State advocates for the liberal, limited gatekeeper approach. Both approaches find support in New York case law.

The respondent urges that the Court of Appeals, in Hambsch (63 NY2d at 726), decided this issue in favor of the restrictive approach. While William F. appears to support that position (see 44 Misc 3d at 342), this court disagrees. In Hambsch, the Court said only that “[i]n order to qualify for the ‘professional reliability’ exception, there must be evidence establishing the reliability of the out-of-court material” (63 NY2d at 726). On its face, this statement does not impose any additional requirement not found in the Sugden formulation, which likewise [973]

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Related

State v. Floyd Y.
2 N.E.3d 204 (New York Court of Appeals, 2013)
Cassano v. Hagstrom
159 N.E.2d 348 (New York Court of Appeals, 1959)
People v. Sugden
323 N.E.2d 169 (New York Court of Appeals, 1974)
Hambsch v. New York City Transit Authority
469 N.E.2d 516 (New York Court of Appeals, 1984)
O'Brien v. Mbugua
49 A.D.3d 937 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 2008)
Murphy v. Woods
63 A.D.3d 1526 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 2009)
State v. Motzer
79 A.D.3d 1687 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 2010)
State v. Mark S.
87 A.D.3d 73 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 2011)
Pegg v. Shahin
237 A.D.2d 271 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1997)
Torregrossa v. Weinstein
278 A.D.2d 487 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 2000)
Fleiss v. South Buffalo Railway Co.
291 A.D.2d 848 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 2002)
Wagman v. Bradshaw
292 A.D.2d 84 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 2002)
State v. William F.
44 Misc. 3d 338 (New York Supreme Court, 2014)

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Bluebook (online)
47 Misc. 3d 969, 7 N.Y.S.3d 866, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-jrc-nysupct-2015.