Kansas v. Cheever (571 U.S. 87)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided December 11, 2013 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 571 U.S. 87 · 134 S. Ct. 596
- Decided
- December 11, 2013
- Term
- October Term 2013
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Sotomayor
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Held : The rule of Buchanan, reaffirmed here, applies in this case to permit the prosecution to offer the rebuttal evidence at issue. Pp. 600 - 603. (a) In Buchanan, the prosecution presented evidence from a court-ordered evaluation to rebut the defendant's affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance. This Court concluded that this rebuttal testimony did not offend the Fifth Amendment, holding that when 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. Buchanan 's reasoning was not limited to the circumstance that the evaluation was requested jointly by the defense and the government. Nor did the case turn on whether state law referred to extreme emotional disturbance as an affirmative defense. Pp. 600 - 601. (b) The admission of rebuttal testimony under the rule of Buchanan 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. See Fitzpatrick v. United States, 178 U.S. 304, 315, 20 S.Ct. 944, 44 L.Ed. 1078. Here, the prosecution elicited testimony from its expert only after Cheever offered expert testimony about his inability to form the requisite mens rea. Excluding this testimony would…
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