That Sinquefield Feeling - Shrinks and PCR in 19^th JDC

 Putting the Stop on Dr. Hoppe

Yesterday, in the capital post-conviction case of Jeffery Frost in the 19th JDC for Baton Rouge, former ADA John Sinquefield (with special permission slip from new boss, AG Buddy Caldwell) began the presentation of the State's case in rebuttal to our post-conviction petition and hearings conducted since June 2007. I did not conduct any of the Daubert direct exam or other cross examination of Dr. Hoppe. Instead, lead pro bono counsel Jerry Glas of Deutsch Kerrigan & Styles was the master from the podium yesterday.

Donald Hoppe, Psy.D., was precluded by Judge Bonnie Jackson from testifying concerning any aspect of his 12/7/07 court-ordered interview with Jeffery Frost, because we had filed a Daubert motion to challenge the scientific basis for his examination. Essentially, Dr. Hoppe had been permitted to conduct an "independent mental health evaluation" by Judge Jackson for the purpose of rebutting the hearing testimony of our PC experts who found that Jeffery Frost suffers from PTSD, a diagnosis notably absent from any penalty phase presentation in his 1996 trial.

The Court granted my request last Fall to observe Dr. Hoppe conduct his evaluation of Jeffery Frost. I took lots of notes.

Dr. Hoppe asked 216 questions of Jeffery. 215 questions had nothing to do with psychology, or specifically with the diagnosing of PTSD or any other mental disorder. Only 1 question pertained to the issue of beginning to diagnose one of the multiple prerequisites for establishing a PTSD diagnosis under the DSM, any edition. We filed a copy of the 216 questions without the answers, as an appendix to our Daubert motion.

When allowed to testify instead to all other matters besides the interview, Dr. Hoppe reported, to our great surprise, that he himself had made an initial assessment of PTSD of Jeffery 12 years ago, when he sat in the Court earning money as a contractor for the District Attorney, listening to two defense psychiatrists, in anticipation of his being called by Sinquefield as a rebuttal witness. But Sinquefield did not call Hoppe and the legend is that he thought that the defense case was so weak that he did not need to bother in order to win a death sentence. Sinquefield got his death sentence.

John S. was notably upset in court yesterday, trying again and again to assert that the first he heard about the 1996 Hoppe PTSD initial analysis was four days ago.

Although a reporter from the Advocate was present for three hours in the courtroom, my review of the Advocate website found no news article in today's paper.

Hoppe's notes, including his three separate inscriptions of the acronym "PTSD" is now part of the post-conviction hearing record, over the "Hoppe HIPPA objection" of the good doctor himself.

When a transcript is finalized of yesterday's hearing, I will circulate to the lists. It is the first time that Donald Hoppe has been precluded from testifying on anything in a capital case, that I am aware of.

Not counting Jeffery Frost's case, nor counting the current case of Anthony Bell, Hoppe has testified in at least five other cases resulting in the death penalty, always for the prosecution. He never gives a diagnosis, but instead only picks away at deficiencies in the defense case. (I understand that he testified that Anthony Bell had a 53 IQ).

I have had the pleasure of observing Dr. Hoppe conduct an "Atkins" evaluation of another death row inmate on post-conviction recently. His modus operandi was identical to that in the PTSD case here. Hoppe brings a blank legal pad and a pen into the interview. He has no pre-written questions, let alone any peer-reviewed standardized questions that would pass muster under the flimsiest Daubert challenge. (He did say that he brought a copy of the DSM-IV section PTSD to the Frost evaluation, but he apparently never referred to it, because all of his other questions were so fascinatingly brilliant.

Gary Clements

Director, CPCPL

Suite 1700

1340 Poydras Street

New Orleans, LA 70112