William Hoffman told the police that he squeezed his 6 month old son's abdomen before forcing him face-down into a pillow. He said he had been angry, and "must have wanted to hurt Ryan." Two days after making these statements, Mr. Hoffman returned to the police, stating that he wanted to give the whole truth. He acknowledged forcing his child's head onto the pillow and holding it there.
At his trial for manslaughter, assault, criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a child, Mr. Hoffman attempted to offer the expert testimony of Dr. Jack Davies, a forensic pathologist, regarding the reliability of parental confessions. The court precluded Dr. Davies' opinion of this matter, stating that a psychological evaluation regarding the emotional status of traumatized parents was not within a pathologist's expertise. Mr. Hoffman objected, arguing that Dr. Davies' experience with traumatized parents of deceased infants qualified him to opine on the general reliability of parental confessions. The court limited his testimony to an opinion that parents' emotional condition plays a very important role in the investigation of smothering cases.
The People attempted to introduce testimony from Dr. Barbara Wolf, a forensic pathologist with exposure to unreliable parental confessions resulting from a child's death. Dr. Wolf told the court that she lacked expertise with regard to the psychological and social aspects of an infant's death. The court disallowed her from testifying about parental confessions.
Mr. Hoffman was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and served four years in jail. Upon appeal, he argued that his confessions were involuntary and given under stress. To wit, Mr. Hoffman pointed out that he was questioned by the police, on and off, for over 15 hours until he finally signed a confession that he had killed his son.
Mr. Hoffman also argued that the court committed a reversible error by limiting and precluding testimony from the pathologists regarding the reliability of parental confessions. The vast experience and exposure of the pathologists to traumatized parents should have qualified the experts to testify about this topic.
Holding: Mr. Hoffman's interrogation was lengthy and accusatory in nature, but it was not a custodial interrogation. He was free to leave at any time and his confessions were not coerced. Regarding the expert testimony, this court held that the trial judge correctly precluded and limited the testimony of the pathologists due to insufficient expertise regarding parental confessions.
 | Michael Welner, M.D. Chairman The Forensic Panel |
Dr. Welner Comments: It is more convenient and therefore tempting for the court to qualify a witness with expertise in one subspecialty area to offer testimony just beyond the reach of his medical training. Forensic pathologists are trained to draw conclusions about the mechanism of injury or death from an examination of wounds and injuries. These determinations often enable medical examiners to testify to the court about a defendant's intent. For this reason, and because of the psychosocial implications of the crime, forensic examinations of child abuse victims present an important example of the interface of forensic pathology and psychiatry.
Child abuse injuries and death are often presented to emergency rooms and medical examiners as accidents. Pediatric and pathology (not psychiatric) research has linked the spiral fractures of long bones with twisting by the abuser, different stages of healing bruises, multiple old fractures, and other patterns of injuries to intentionally abused victims. Such research has drawn medicine out of the long dark age of its own child neglect.
The behavior of parents in the investigation of a child's death is poorly researched. Medical examiners will often defer to psychiatrists or psychologists to testify about the mental state of the interrogated and grieving parent, but this is sometimes simply not practical. The reality is that medical examiners are far more likely to encounter these defendants at the point of confession than psychiatrists and psychologists, primarily because of the timing of their investigations. Confession science is therefore every bit as much, if not more so, the province of the forensic pathologist who regularly conducts interviews in the course of his death investigation. Motivations underlying the behaviors of the investigated parent, on the other hand, are more within the expertise of the mental health professional experienced and trained in family dynamics. Watch how this will be handled in the JonBenet Ramsey prosecution, if either or both of the parents is charged.
Attorneys who retain psychiatric experts in cases involving death should therefore expect the psychiatrist to meet with pathologists to review the examination of the body and scene. It is beyond the expertise of the psychiatrist, for example, to look at crime scene photos and medical reports (containing eight syllable words he or she hasn't remembered since medical school) and draw conclusions, unaided, about the sequence of events leading to a death. And yet, tracing the development of a crime, through blood spatter analysis, quality and placement of wounds, as well as other identifying features of the victim and scene may provide contemporary hard evidence of a defendant's mental state. The communication between and respective input of the pathologist and psychiatrist is critical.
This tag team approach also works well with the forensic toxicologist, who brings his or her own special expertise to the court on how quickly illicit and prescription drugs are metabolized. This expert can therefore address questions of intoxication or influence. But the behavioral manifestations of drug
intoxication and influence are the province of the forensic psychiatrist. This may conjure images of consultation teams scurrying to and from the witness box like subspecialists making pilgrimages to the bedside of a sick patient to the point of exhausting him even more. Yet, this is the best way medicine provides optimum expertise in the hospital. Such application of science to and from the witness stand will ensure true expertise that will assist the trier of fact.
