Waiver of Rights to Silence and Legal Counsel

Conclusions and Opinions

When circumstances allow the examiner to conclude that the individual probably understood very little about the rights at the time that they were waived, this still does not justify expert testimony concerning the validity of waiver (i.e., testimony that the waiver was or was not made “knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily”). Nothing about the empirical nature of the forensic assessment instruments justifies testimony by expert witnesses on questions that require moral and social judgments in the application of the legal standard.