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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 12–609
_________________
KANSAS, PETITIONER v. SCOTT D. CHEEVER
on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
kansas
[December 11, 2013]
Justice Sotomayor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Fifth Amendment to
the United States Constitution provides that “[n]o person
. . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a
witness against himself . . . .” The question here is
whether the Fifth Amendment prohibits the government from
introducing evidence from a court-ordered mental evaluation of a
criminal defendant to rebut that defendant’s presentation of expert
testimony in support of a defense of voluntary intoxication. We
hold that it does not.
I
On the morning of
January 19, 2005, Scott Cheever shot and killed Matthew Samuels, a
sheriff of Greenwood County, Kansas, and shot at other local law
enforcement officers. In the hours before the shooting, Cheever and
his friends had cooked and smoked methamphetamine at a home near
Hilltop, Kansas. Samuels and multiple deputies drove there to
arrest Cheever on an unrelated outstanding warrant.
When one of Cheever’s
friends warned him that officers were en route, Cheever rushed
outside and tried to drive away, but his car had a flat tire. He
returned inside and hid with a friend in an upstairs bedroom,
holding a loaded .44 caliber revolver. Cheever then heard footsteps
on the stairs leading up to the room, and he stepped out and shot
Samuels, who was climbing the stairs. After briefly returning to
the bedroom, Cheever walked back to the staircase and shot Samuels
again. He also shot at a deputy and a detective, as well as members
of a local SWAT (special weapons and tactics) team that had since
arrived. Only Samuels was hit.
The State charged
Cheever with capital murder. But shortly thereafter, in an
unrelated case, the Kansas Supreme Court found the State’s death
penalty scheme unconstitutional. State v. Marsh, 278 Kan. 520, 102
P. 3d 445 (2004). Rather than continuing to prosecute Cheever
without any chance of a death sentence, state prosecutors dismissed
their charges and allowed federal authorities to prosecute Cheever
under the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994, 18 U. S. C.
§3591 et seq.
In the federal case,
Cheever filed notice that he “intend[ed] to introduce expert
evidence relating to his intoxication by methamphetamine at the
time of the events on January 19, 2005, which negated his ability
to form spe-cific intent, e.g., malice aforethought, premeditation
and deliberation.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 69–70. Pursuant to
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12.2(b), the District Court
ordered Cheever to submit to a psychiatric evaluation by Michael
Welner, a forensic psychiatrist, to assess how methamphetamine use
had affected him when he shot Samuels. Welner interviewed Cheever
for roughly five and a half hours.
The federal case
proceeded to trial. Seven days into jury selection, however,
defense counsel became unable to continue; the court suspended the
proceedings and later dismissed the case without prejudice.
Meanwhile, this Court had reversed the Kansas Supreme Court and
held that the Kansas death penalty statute was constitutional.
Kansas v. Marsh, 548 U. S. 163, 167 (2006) . A second federal
prosecution never commenced.
Kansas then brought a
second state prosecution. At the state trial, Cheever presented a
voluntary-intoxication defense, arguing that his methamphetamine
use had ren-dered him incapable of premeditation. In support of
this argument, Cheever offered testimony from Roswell Lee Evans, a
specialist in psychiatric pharmacy and dean of the Auburn
University School of Pharmacy. Evans opined that Cheever’s
long-term methamphetamine use had damaged his brain. [
1 ] Evans also testified that on the
morning of the shooting, Cheever was acutely intoxicated. According
to Evans, Cheever’s actions were “very much influenced by” his use
of methamphetamine.
After the defense
rested, the State sought to present rebuttal testimony from Welner,
the expert who had examined Cheever by order of the federal court.
Defense counsel objected, arguing that because Welner’s opinions
were based in part on an examination to which Cheever had not
voluntarily agreed, his testimony would violate the Fifth Amendment
proscription against compelling an accused to testify against
himself. The State countered that the testimony was necessary to
rebut Cheever’s voluntary-intoxication defense.
The trial court agreed
with the State. The court was persuaded, in part, by the fact that
the defense expert had himself relied on Welner’s examination
report: “I think that fact alone probably allows the State to call
[Welner] to give his own point of view.” App. 92. The court allowed
Welner’s testimony for the purpose of showing that Cheever shot
Samuels “because of his antisocial personal-ity, not because his
brain was impaired by methamphetamine.” Id., at 94.
The jury found Cheever
guilty of murder and attempted murder. At the penalty phase, it
unanimously voted to impose a sentence of death, and the trial
court accepted that verdict.
On appeal to the Kansas
Supreme Court, Cheever argued that the State had violated his Fifth
Amendment rights when it introduced, through Welner’s testimony,
statements that he had made during the federal court-ordered mental
examination. The court agreed, relying primarily on Estelle v.
Smith, 451 U. S. 454 (1981) , in which we held that a
court-ordered psychiatric exami-nation violated the defendant’s
Fifth Amendment rights when the defendant neither initiated the
examination nor put his mental capacity in dispute at trial. 295
Kan. 229, 243–244, 284 P. 3d 1007, 1019–1020 (2012) (per
curiam). The court acknowledged, id., at 244–245, 284 P. 3d,
at 1020, our holding that a State may introduce the results of a
court-ordered mental examination for the limited purpose of
rebutting a mental-status defense. Buchanan v. Kentucky, 483
U. S. 402 –424 (1987). But it distinguished Buchanan on the
basis that under Kansas law, voluntary intoxication is not a
“mental disease or defect.” 295 Kan., at 250, 284 P. 3d, at
1023. Consequently, it vacated Cheever’s conviction and sentence,
holding that Cheever had not waived his Fifth Amendment privilege
and that his federal court-ordered examination should not have been
used against him at the state-court trial. Ibid. We granted
certiorari, 568 U. S. ___ (2013), and now reverse.
II
The Fifth Amendment
guarantees that “[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in
any criminal case to be a witness against himself . . .
.” We held in Estelle that under the Fifth Amendment, when a
criminal defendant “neither initiates a psychiatric evaluation nor
attempts to introduce any psychiatric evidence,” his compelled
statements to a psychiatrist cannot be used against him. 451
U. S., at 468. In that case, a judge ordered a psychiatric
exam-ination to determine the defendant’s competency to stand
trial. Id., at 456–457. The prosecution then used statements from
that examination during the sentencing phase of the trial as
evidence of the defendant’s future dangerousness. Id., at 458–460.
Emphasizing that the defendant had neither “introduced” any
“psychiatric evidence,” nor even “indicated that he might do so,”
id., at 466, we concluded that the Fifth Amendment did not permit
the State to use the defendant’s statements in this manner.
In Buchanan, we
addressed the admissibility of evidence from a court-ordered
evaluation where—unlike in Estelle—a defendant had introduced
psychiatric evidence related to his mental-status defense. We held
that the Fifth Amendment allowed the prosecution to present
evidence from the evaluation to rebut the defendant’s affirmative
defense of extreme emotional disturbance. And while, as Cheever
notes, the mental evaluation in Buchanan was requested jointly by
the defense and the government, our holding was not limited to that
circumstance. Moreover, contrary to Cheever’s suggestion, the case
did not turn on whether state law referred to extreme emotional
disturbance as an “affirmative defense.” Buchanan, 483 U. S.,
at 408, 422 (holding that the prosecution’s use of rebuttal expert
testimony is permissible where a defendant “presents psychiatric
evidence”). The rule of Buchanan, which we reaffirm today, is that
where a defense expert who has examined the defendant testifies
that the defendant lacked the requisite mental state to commit an
offense, the prosecution may present psychiatric evidence in
rebuttal. Ibid. Any other rule would undermine the adversarial
process, allowing a defendant to provide the jury, through an
expert operating as proxy, with a one-sided and potentially
inaccurate view of his mental state at the time of the alleged
crime.
The admission of this
rebuttal testimony harmonizes with the principle that when a
defendant chooses to testify in a criminal case, the Fifth
Amendment does not allow him to refuse to answer related questions
on cross-examination. A defendant “has no right to set forth to the
jury all the facts which tend in his favor without laying himself
open to a cross-examination upon those facts.” Fitzpatrick v.
United States, 178 U. S. 304, 315 (1900) . We explained in Brown v.
United States, 356 U. S. 148 (1958) , which involved a witness’s
refusal to answer questions in a civil case, that where a party
provides testimony and then refuses to answer potentially
incriminating questions, “[t]he interests of the other party and
regard for the function of courts of justice to ascertain the truth
become relevant, and prevail in the balance of considerations
determining the scope and limits of the privilege against
self-incrimination.” Id., at 156. When a defendant presents
evidence through a psychological expert who has examined him, the
government likewise is permitted to use the only effective means of
challenging that evidence: testimony from an expert who has also
examined him. See United States v. Byers, 740 F. 2d 1104, 1113
(CADC 1984) (en banc) (holding that the Government could present
rebuttal expert testimony in part because it is perhaps “the most
trustworthy means of attempting to meet” the burden of proof
(internal quotation marks omitted)). [
2 ]
The prosecution here
elicited testimony from its expert only after Cheever offered
expert testimony about his in-ability to form the requisite mens
rea. The testimony of the government expert rebutted that of
Cheever’s expert. See id. at 1114 (“Ordinarily the only effective
rebuttal of psychiatric opinion testimony is contradictory opinion
tes-timony; and for that purpose . . . the basic tool of
psy-chiatric study remains the personal interview, which requires
rapport between the interviewer and the subject” (internal
quotation marks omitted)); State v. Druke, 143 Ariz. 314, 318, 693
P. 2d 969, 973 (App. 1984) (“[A]n in-ference would arise that
the evidence presented by the [defendant] as to his mental
condition is true because un-contradicted”). The trial court
therefore did not violate the Fifth Amendment when it allowed
Welner to testify that Cheever “made a choice to shoot,” App. 131,
because the State permissibly followed where the defense led.
Excluding this testimony would have undermined Buchanan and the
core truth-seeking function of the trial.
III
Neither the Kansas
Supreme Court’s reasoning, nor Cheever’s arguments, persuade us not
to apply the settled rule of Buchanan.
A
Although the Kansas
Supreme Court acknowledged that the State may present evidence
obtained from a compelled psychiatric examination when “the
defendant presents evidence at trial that he or she lacked the
requisite criminal intent due to mental disease or defect,” 295
Kan., at 249, 284 P. 3d, at 1023, it reasoned that voluntary
intoxication is not a “mental disease or defect” as a matter of
state law. Id., at 250, 284 P. 3d, at 1023–1024 (citing State
v. Kleypas, 272 Kan. 894, 40 P. 3d 139 (2001)). The court
therefore concluded that “Cheever did not waive his Fifth Amendment
privilege and thus permit his court-ordered examination by Dr.
Welner to be used against him at trial.” 295 Kan., at 251, 284
P. 3d, at 1024.
This reasoning
misconstrues our precedents. Although Kansas law defines “mental
disease or defect” narrowly, to exclude voluntary intoxication,
that phrase is actually not the salient one under our precedents.
In Buchanan, we permitted rebuttal testimony where the defendant
presented evidence of “the ‘mental status’ defense of extreme
emotional disturbance.” 483 U. S., at 423. And “mental status”
is a broader term than “mental disease or defect,” at least to the
extent that Kansas law excludes voluntary intoxication from that
definition. Mental-status defenses include those based on
psychological expert evidence as to a defendant’s mens rea, mental
capacity to commit the crime, or ability to premeditate. Defendants
need not as-sert a “mental disease or defect” in order to assert a
defense based on “mental status.”
To the extent that the
Kansas Supreme Court declined to apply Buchanan because Cheever’s
intoxication was “temporary,” our precedents are again not so
narrowly circumscribed. Like voluntary intoxication, extreme
emotional disturbance is a “temporary” condition, at least
according to the Kentucky state courts where Buchanan was tried.
See McClellan v. Commonwealth, 715 S. W. 2d 464, 468–469 (Ky. 1986)
(defining extreme emotional disturbance as “a temporary state of
mind so enraged, inflamed, or disturbed as to overcome one’s
judgment, and to cause one to act uncontrollably from [an]
impelling force of [an] extreme emotional disturbance rather than
from evil or malicious purposes”). We nonetheless held in Buchanan
that the defense of extreme emotional disturbance, when supported
by expert testimony, may be re-butted with expert testimony. The
same is true here. Cheever’s psychiatric evidence concerned his
mental status because he used it to argue that he lacked the
requisite mental capacity to premeditate. The Fifth Amendment
therefore did not bar the State from using Welner’s examination to
rebut Cheever’s voluntary-intoxication defense.
B
Cheever further
contends that the Fifth Amendment imposes limits on the State’s
ability to introduce rebuttal evidence regarding a defendant’s
mental status. According to Cheever, Welner’s testimony exceeded
these limits by describing the shooting from Cheever’s perspective;
[
3 ] by insinuating that he
had a personality disorder; and by discussing his alleged
infatuation with criminals.
We have held that
testimony based on a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation is
admissible only for a “limited rebuttal purpose.” Buchanan, 483
U. S., at 424. In Buchanan, for example, although the
prosecution had used a psychiatric report to rebut the defendant’s
evidence of extreme emotional disturbance, we noted that the trial
court had redacted the report so as to avoid exposing the jury to
“the very different issue” of the defendant’s competency to stand
trial. Id., at 423, n. 20. Two years later, we explained in
dictum that “[n]othing” in our precedents “suggests that a
defendant opens the door to the admission of psychiatric evidence
on future dangerousness by raising an insanity defense at the guilt
stage of the trial.” Powell v. Texas, 492 U. S. 680 –686, n. 3
(1989) ( per curiam). Here, however, the Kansas Supreme Court
did not address whether Welner’s testimony exceeded the scope of
rebuttal testimony permitted by the Fifth Amendment or by the
State’s evidentiary rules. We accordingly decline to address this
issue in the first instance. [
4 ]
* * *
We hold that where a
defense expert who has examined the defendant testifies that the
defendant lacked the requisite mental state to commit a crime, the
prosecution may offer evidence from a court-ordered psychological
examination for the limited purpose of rebutting the defendant’s
evidence.
The judgment of the
Kansas Supreme Court is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded
for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so
ordered.
