Wolfe v. Texas

by
Appellant Jennifer Wolfe presented an issue of whether expert testimony on the subject of abusive head trauma was reliable. She raised the issue in her petition for discretionary review following her conviction in a bench trial for first-degree-felony injury to a child after an infant under her care sustained serious internal head injuries. Appellant objected to the State’s experts’ testimony on the basis that it was unreliable, but the trial court overruled her objection. On discretionary review, appellant challenged the court of appeals’ ruling upholding the admissibility of this evidence on two bases: (1) the court of appeals erred by concluding that the experts’ testimony on abusive head trauma “based solely on a constellation of symptoms” was sufficiently reliable so as to render it admissible under the rules of evidence; and (2) the court of appeals incorrectly determined that her appellate challenge to the reliability of the experts’ testimony on abusive head trauma did not fairly include the issue of whether the expert testimony was unreliable “given this specific injured party’s history.” With respect to appellant’s contention challenging the reliability of the experts’ testimony of abusive head trauma based solely on a constellation of symptoms, the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the court of appeals’ assessment that the experts’ testimony was sufficiently reliable so as to warrant a conclusion that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting that evidence, and thus overruled appellant’s complaint as to this matter. With respect to appellant’s contention that the court of appeals erred by declining to consider this particular complainant’s history in conducting its reliability analysis, the Court concluded that the court of appeals’ analysis reflects that it did consider whether the experts’ opinions were reliable in light of this complainant’s particular injuries. Further, to the extent that appellant complains that the court of appeals improperly declined to consider the complainant’s medical history of prior bleeding in the brain as a basis for rejecting the reliability of the State’s experts’ testimony, the Court concluded that appellant did not rely on the complainant’s history of prior bleeding as a basis for arguing that the experts’ opinions were unreliable, and thus the court of appeals did not err by declining to address that issue. Finding no reversible error, the court of appeals’ judgment upholding appellant’s conviction was affirmed. View "Wolfe v. Texas" on Justia Law