NUMBER 13-11-00702-CR
COURT OF APPEALS
THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS
CORPUS CHRISTI - EDINBURG
BILLY JOE HARRIS, Appellant,
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee.
On appeal from the 24th District Court
of Jackson County, Texas.
OPINION
Before Justices Rodriguez, Garza, and Perkes
Opinion by Justice Rodriguez
Appellant Billy Joe Harris challenges his conviction for aggravated sexual assault
of a disabled person. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 22.021 (West Supp. 2011). By one
issue, Harris argues that the trial court erred in excluding his expert’s testimony. We
affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
The indictment charged Harris with aggravated sexual assault. Harris entered a
plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. In support of his insanity defense, Harris offered
the testimony of his expert, Colin Ross, M.D., a psychiatrist.1 His testimony concerned a
dissociative disorder known as dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly referred to as
multiple personality disorder (MPD) or repressed memory. The trial court excluded Dr.
Ross’s testimony in its entirety.2 The jury found Harris guilty of the charged offense and
assessed his punishment at confinement for life in the Institutional Division of the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice and a $10,000 fine.
II. EXCLUSION OF EXPERT TESTIMONY
By his sole issue, Harris contends that the trial court abused its discretion when it
excluded testimony offered by Dr. Ross, Harris’s expert witness in the field of DID. The
State asserts that the trial court did not abuse its discretion because Dr. Ross’s testimony
regarding DID was unreliable and the jury should not have considered it. Harris agrees
that the issue to be determined in this appeal is whether Dr. Ross’s testimony was
reliable.
A. Standard of Review
1
Harris also offered the testimony of expert Walter Quijano, Ph.D. Dr. Quijano, a psychologist,
testified that the defense retained him to examine Harris in order to determine whether Harris was mentally
ill and whether a mental illness had anything to do with the charges against Harris. During his
examination, Harris talked with Dr. Quijano about “David,” whom he described as a rapist and a dog;
“Bobby,” whom he described as the “mean person who robbed people”; and “Robert,” whose function he did
not describe. Believing that Harris was referring to other personalities, Dr. Quijano informed Harris’s
lawyer that he needed an expert who specialized in dissociative identity disorder (DID). As a result, Harris
hired Dr. Ross.
2
In addition to excluding the testimony of Dr. Ross, the trial court limited Dr. Quijano’s testimony, to
the extent he testified about DID. On appeal, Harris complains that the trial court erred when it excluded
Dr. Ross’s testimony and when it limited Dr. Quijano’s testimony concerning DID. Our analysis regarding
the reliability of Dr. Ross’s testimony applies equally to the excluded testimony of Dr. Quijano.
2
We review a trial court’s decision to admit or exclude scientific expert testimony
under an abuse of discretion standard. Coble v. State, 330 S.W.3d 253, 272 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2010); Weatherred v. State, 15 S.W.3d 540, 542 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000). An abuse
of discretion occurs when the trial court’s ruling is arbitrary or unreasonable. State v.
Mechler, 153 S.W.3d 435, 439 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). A trial court does not abuse its
discretion if its decision is within “the zone of reasonable disagreement.” Bigon v. State,
252 S.W.3d 360, 367 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008). In determining whether a trial court
abused its discretion, we review the trial court’s ruling in light of what was before the trial
court at the time the ruling was made. Weatherred, 15 S.W.3d at 542 (citing Hoyos v.
State, 982 S.W.2d 419, 422 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998) (en banc)).
B. Applicable Law
Rule of evidence 702 provides that an expert may testify on scientific, technical, or
other specialized subjects if the testimony would assist the factfinder in understanding the
evidence or determining a fact issue. TEX. R. EVID. 702. “The threshold determination
in an inquiry into the admissibility of scientific evidence is whether the evidence is helpful
to the trier of fact, and for such evidence to be helpful, it must be reliable.” Somers v.
State, 368 S.W.3d 528, 535 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012); see Coble, 330 S.W.3d at 299;
Weatherred, 15 S.W.3d at 542 (citing Nenno v. State, 970 S.W.2d 549, 560–61 (Tex.
Crim. App. 1998), overruled on other grounds by State v. Terrazas, 4 S.W.3d 720, 727
(Tex. Crim. App. 1999) (en banc) (other citations omitted)). The burden is on the
proponent to show by clear and convincing evidence that the offered testimony is
sufficiently relevant and reliable. Weatherred, 15 S.W.3d at 542.
If the trial court determines that the scientific testimony or evidence is not reliable,
3
it may exclude it. See Weatherred, 15 S.W.3d at 542–43. The Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals enumerated the following factors that may affect the reliability of hard science:
(1) the extent to which the underlying scientific theory and technique are accepted as
valid by the relevant scientific community, if such a community can be ascertained; (2) the
qualifications of the experts testifying; (3) the existence of literature supporting or
rejecting the underlying scientific theory and technique; (4) the potential rate of error of
the technique; (5) the availability of other experts to test and evaluate the technique; (6)
the clarity with which the underlying scientific theory and technique can be explained to
the court; and (7) the experience and skill of the person(s) who applied the technique on
the occasion in question. Kelly v. State, 824 S.W.2d 568, 573 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992) (en
banc); see Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 590–92, (1993). The
field of psychology, however, falls within the ambit of “soft science,” not hard science.3
See, e.g., Weatherred, 15 S.W.3d at 542 (explaining that “[t]he ‘soft’ sciences . . . are
generally thought to include such fields as psychology” and discussing the reliability of
eyewitness identifications as a soft science). And when the reliability of soft scientific
evidence is at issue, the inquiry is somewhat more flexible than the Kelly factors
applicable to Newtonian and medical sciences. Coble, 330 S.W.3d at 273 (citing Kelly,
3
Whether DID, the alleged disorder, is properly categorized as a psychological disorder, which
we would review as a soft science, or a medical disorder, which we would review as a hard science, is not
before us in this appeal. For purposes of this opinion, we will assume without deciding that DID falls within
the field of psychology and review it under the more flexible soft-science standard. See Weatherred v.
State, 15 S.W.3d 540, 542 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000). In this case, the fact that Harris offered a
psychiatrist—a medical doctor—as his expert, does not necessarily change the nature of our review to hard
science. In fact, the State offered a psychologist as its expert, and neither party challenged the opposing
expert’s qualifications. Nevertheless, even were we to review it as a hard science, we would reach the
same result because, based on the expert testimony before the trial court and the context of this case, we
consider many of the Kelly hard-science factors as part of our soft-science analysis. See Coble v. State,
330 S.W.3d 253, 273 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010) (citing Kelly v. State, 824 S.W.2d 568, 572–73 (Tex. Crim.
App. 1992) (en banc)); Nenno v. State, 970 S.W.2d 549, 561 n.9 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998), overruled on other
grounds by State v. Terrazas, 4 S.W.3d 720, 727 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999) (en banc).
4
824 S.W.2d at 572–73).
When determining the reliability of soft-science testimony, the trial court must
inquire as to whether: “(1) the field of expertise involved is a legitimate one, (2) the
subject matter of the expert’s testimony is within the scope of that field, and (3) the
expert’s testimony properly relies upon or utilizes the principles involved in that field.”
Tillman v. State, 354 S.W.3d 425, 435–36 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011) (quoting Weatherred,
15 S.W.3d at 542 and citing Nenno, 970 S.W.2d at 561). Referring to this series of
questions as the Nenno test, the court of criminal appeals has described this inquiry as
“merely an appropriately tailored translation of the Kelly test to areas outside of hard
science.” Id. (quoting Nenno, 970 S.W.2d at 561). For soft science, “the ‘general
principles announced in Kelly (and Daubert) apply, but the specific factors outlined in
those cases may or may not apply depending upon the context.’” Id. (quoting Nenno,
970 S.W.2d at 560). For example, in Nenno, the court of criminal appeals explained that
the “hard science methods of validation, such as assessing the potential rate of error or
subjecting a theory to peer review, may often be inappropriate for testing the reliability of
fields of expertise outside the hard sciences.” 970 S.W.2d at 561. But the court also
noted that it did “not categorically rule out employing such factors in an appropriate case.”
Id. at 561 n.9.
C. Expert Testimony
1. Defense Expert Psychiatrist Colin Ross, M.D.
Dr. Ross, a practicing psychiatrist, testified that he attended medical school in
Canada and received a Canadian specialty in psychiatry in 1985. Based in a medical
school, Dr. Ross worked as a psychiatrist in Canada for approximately six years. He
5
relocated to the Dallas, Texas area where he “runs a trauma program [in a private
hospital] in the Dallas area, 1991 to the present.” Dr. Ross testified that he specializes in
psychological trauma, “which is bad things that happen to people and their mental health
effects,” and sub-specializes “in a certain group of symptoms called dissociative
symptoms and dissociative disorders.” Dr. Ross defined dissociative disorders as “a
failure of integration in the normal functions of consciousness, identity, memory[,] and
perception.” He explained that the five subsections of the dissociative disorders are:
dissociative amnesia; dissociative fugue; depersonalization disorder; DID; and
dissociative disorder, not otherwise specified. Dr. Ross testified that about half of the
people admitted to the Dallas program since 1991 have been diagnosed with DID and
half have had other kinds of trauma and problems.
According to Dr. Ross, DID generally involves different identities that take turns
being in charge of the body, and one identity may or may not remember what the other is
doing. More specifically, Dr. Ross described DID as a disorder where the primary,
normal person suddenly switches and someone else comes out, takes over the body,
acts differently, and speaks with a different tone of voice. When that entity goes back
inside the primary person, the person may have a “fuzzy” memory or no memory of what
happened. The person would feel as if the other entity was in control, and the primary
person could not stop or start it. According to Dr. Ross, if a personality is committing a
crime based on this multiple personality concept, the primary person may or may not
understand the wrongfulness of the act.
The defense hired Dr. Ross to examine Harris, offer his opinion in this matter, and
testify as a defense expert. Dr. Ross agreed that Harris is suffering from a serious
6
mental illness or defect, which he described as DID; however, according to Dr. Ross, a
diagnosis of DID does not automatically mean that Harris “doesn’t understand the
wrongfulness of his acts, but it could.” Dr. Ross further testified that he was confident
that DID is the correct diagnosis for Harris, but said that he “could very well be wrong.”
On cross-examination, Dr. Ross agreed that repressed memories, multiple personality,
and DID are all controversial theories. He also agreed that many of the leaders in the
fields of psychology and psychiatry consider these theories to be unreliable “junk science”
and that a number of therapists have been sued and prosecuted for abusing patients they
treated for DID or MPD.
Dr. Ross explained that DID is categorized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders (DSM) as a subcategory of dissociative disorders.4 He testified that
the DSM, published by the American Psychiatric Association, sets out all the rules and
criteria for making different psychiatric diagnoses. He agreed that the DSM is the
accepted treatise for psychological establishments. Dr. Ross characterized the process
of publishing the DSM, including its complex structure of committees, as peer review.
He explained that, among other things, committee members discuss and review any
changes that should be made in the DSM. Dr. Ross testified that he had been a member
of the dissociative committee for the DSM.
According to Dr. Ross, when the American Psychiatric Association placed
dissociative disorders as a separate section in the 1980 DSM–II and kept dissociative
disorders in subsequent editions, it was making an official statement that this is a real and
valid disorder, one that is accepted by the scientific and medical community; “there’s a
4
The DSM at the time of trial was the DSM–IV.
7
literature basis for it.” In the 1994 DSM–IV, dissociative disorders were again included
as a separate section or, as Dr. Ross testified, as a separate diagnosis. Dr. Ross
expects it to be the same in the DSM–V. On cross-examination, Dr. Ross testified that a
dissociative disorder, such as DID, is only included in the DSM if it has been subjected to
a peer review group and a percent of error established.
Dr. Ross also testified that he had published “a little over 150 papers in psychiatric
and other professional journals,” which he described as peer-reviewed journals. He
explained that he had “published a series of papers on dissociative—dissociation in
general, dissociative identity disorder in particular in the American Journal of Psychiatry,
which is peer-reviewed, it’s the official top journal of the American Psychiatric
Association.” According to Dr. Ross, he “also published a series of books on dissociative
disorders with several different publishers.” Dr. Ross noted that ten to twelve studies
done in seven or eight different countries reported that about 3.5 percent of the general
adult patients had a diagnosis of DID on their research interviews.
2. State Expert Psychologist Robert Christopher Barden
The State’s expert Robert Christopher Barden, Ph.D., received a doctoral degree
in psychology and did research for many years on how children and their families cope
with stress. Dr. Barden testified that he became interested in how to improve the health
care system for children and received a five-year national research award, which he took
“to Harvard Law School.” He received his law degree in 1992. While there, Dr. Barden
was advised to consider “going into the courtrooms and [helping] to get rid of junk
science,” and in the mid-1990’s, he was asked by national experts “to get involved to stop
this epidemic of thousands of families that were being damaged by these ideas of so
8
called multiple personality disorder.”
According to Dr. Barden, from 1995 until 1999, he worked with Attorneys General
in many states, as well as the F.B.I., to get the licenses of leaders in a MPD (DID)
movement revoked. Dr. Barden testified that he and a number of other national experts
were engaged in several hundred lawsuits to “essentially shut down the MPD movement.”
Dr. Barden testified that he also worked with licensing boards and addressed lawyers,
psychologists, psychiatrists, and physicians throughout the United States to resolve this
matter.
Dr. Barden’s testimony emphasized the need for research and for the submission
of scientific articles to the official boards of organizations such as the official journals of
the American Psychological Association or the American Psychiatric Association. Dr.
Barden testified that there have not been any journal articles on DID or MPD from the
relevant scientific community—scientists who sit on these editorial boards. According to
Dr. Barden, the absence of such evidence is important because testimony about “[articles
from the relevant scientific community] should be an important part of any testimony in a
legal case like this.”
Dr. Barden testified that one of the most significant problems in this area is the
mislabeling of the DSM. Disagreeing with Dr. Ross, Dr. Barden described the DSM as a
dictionary or catalog that was developed so people would use the same descriptive
language in the same manner. In support of his opinion, Dr. Barden discussed an article
titled “Protecting the Integrity of the Legal System, The Admissibility of Testimony from
Mental Health Experts under Daubert/Kuhn Analyses” and published in the Journal of
Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law, which, according to Dr. Barden, is a leading
9
journal in this particular area. Expounding on the article, Dr. Barden testified that just
because something is in the DSM does not mean that it exists or that it is reliable and
should be used in a court of law. He emphasized that DSM labels, which he considered
only as labels and not theories, may not be generally accepted, even though they are
identified in the DSM. Finally, Dr. Barden agreed that no one has ever published an
acceptable peer-reviewed article that sets out that every theory in the DSM is acceptable.
Rather, Dr. Barden testified that “you have a lot of things in the DSM that are still
controversial.”
Dr. Barden also emphasized that “the idea of multiple personality disorder is really
a pretty bizarre idea,” and before the late 1980s, very few people had given any credence
to it at all. He noted that MPD was pulled out of DSM and put back, in a slightly different
way, as DID. And according to Dr. Barden, the Journal of Dissociation, “the big journal
for that group,” was shut down and came back under different management. Dr. Barden
stated that DID is still highly controversial. To support his position, Dr. Barden discussed
and sponsored into evidence a number of peer-reviewed articles, identified by, among
other things, journal, title, and author, on subjects that indicate the unreliability of DID.
On cross-examination, Dr. Barden testified that “you don’t want MPD [DID] in a
court-of-law.” Dr. Barden explained that he knew “of more famous scientists [who] think
[DID is] really dangerous junk science than people [who] think . . . it is credible.” Dr.
Barden expressed the following: “I don’t believe in DID or MPD, I think it’s a
misdiagnosis, I think it’s a mistake.”
Dr. Barden also pointed out that he and Dr. Ross seemed to agree that,
multiple personality disorder is controversial, . . . that Dr. Ross himself is
10
controversial, that he has no scientific method for distinguishing what alter
[personality] is going in what window on what day, [and] that he has no
scientific method for telling whether people are lying to him or not . . . .
In sum, Dr. Barden testified, “[W]e seem to agree that this is a highly controversial part of
the psychiatric/psychological world and that a lot of national and world experts consider
this to be a dangerous mistake, this whole idea of so-called MPD.”
D. Discussion
We first address Harris’s assertion that the State’s arguments and the trial court’s
exclusion of Dr. Ross’s testimony were incorrectly focused on the old Frye
general-acceptance standard, which is no longer a part of Texas law. See Frye v. United
States, 293 F. 1013, 1014 (1923) (explaining that the trial court considers whether a novel
scientific principle has been generally accepted by the scientific community (the Frye
standard)); see also TEX. R. EVID. 702; Daubert, 509 U.S. at 599–89 (holding that rule 702
did not incorporate the Frye test because it was at odds with the progressive approach of
the federal rules of evidence); Kelly, 824 S.W.2d at 472–73 (setting out factors that may
affect the reliability of hard science after Frye). We disagree.
It is clear from the State’s trial objections that it was challenging the reliability of Dr.
Ross’s testimony on the basis that DID is not a legitimate field of expertise. Harris,
himself, acknowledges that the question before this Court is one of reliability. And under
the soft-science Nenno test, when determining the reliability of Dr. Ross’s soft-science
testimony, we must inquire into whether his field of expertise—DID—is a legitimate one.
See Tillman, 354 S.W.3d at 435–36; Nenno, 970 S.W.2d at 561. In other words, it is
clear from the record that the State based its reliability challenge, and the trial court, its
ruling, not on the Frye general acceptance test, but on the first prong of the Nenno
11
test—whether the field of expertise is a legitimate one.5
Relying on Hernandez v. State, Harris also appears to argue that Dr. Ross’s
experience and training testimony should be the basis for determining the reliability of his
testimony. See 53 S.W.3d 742, 749 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2001, pet. ref’d).
However, the Texas Supreme Court has expressed the following regarding experience as
a basis for concluding that an expert’s testimony is reliable:
There must be some basis for the opinion offered to show its
reliability. Experience alone may provide a sufficient basis for an expert’s
testimony in some cases, but it cannot do so in every case. A more
experienced expert may offer unreliable opinions, and a lesser experienced
expert’s opinions may have solid footing. The court in discharging its duty
as gatekeeper must determine how the reliability of particular testimony is to
be assessed.
Gammill v. Jack Williams Chevrolet, Inc., 972 S.W.2d 713, 726 (Tex. 1998).
A close examination of Dr. Ross’s testimony regarding his training and experience
reveals that, although Dr. Ross testified that he ran a psychological trauma program, he
did not develop the details of his work with patients who were said to have had DID. Dr.
Ross testified he had written much on that subject. Yet other than generally stating that
he had written a number of papers and published a number of books, Dr. Ross offered no
identifying information regarding these writings and publications. He provided no
testimony about the specific content of his papers and books that might arguably contain
scientific studies or evidence of the validity of DID. Dr. Ross did not identify research, if
any, that may have resulted from his work. Finally, although Dr. Ross testified that he
5
Because our analysis under this first prong is dispositive of this appeal, we need not address the
remaining prongs of the Nenno test—whether the subject matter of the expert’s testimony is within the
scope of that field and whether the expert’s testimony properly relies upon or utilizes the principles involved
in that field.” See Nenno, 970 S.W.2d at 561; see also TEX. R. APP. P. 47.1.
12
had been a member of the dissociative committee for the DSM, he did not discuss his
DSM committee work in any detail as it related to DID. So while experience alone may
provide a sufficient basis for an expert’s testimony in some cases, see id., in this case we
cannot conclude that Harris established through Dr. Ross’s testimony that his experience
and training alone provided a sufficient basis for establishing the reliability of his
testimony. See id.
Furthermore, although our review of soft science is more flexible than a review of
hard science, it is apparent, from the context of this case, that a number of the Kelly
factors are appropriate to consider in our analysis of the legitimacy of the field of DID, a
question we must answer to determine the reliability of Dr. Ross’s soft-science testimony.
See Nenno, 970 S.W.2d at 561. We will not categorically rule those factors out. See id.
at 561 n.9. The Kelly factors that are relevant to our analysis in this case include the
following: (1) the extent to which the underlying scientific theory and technique are
accepted as valid by the relevant scientific community; (2) the existence of literature
supporting or rejecting the underlying scientific theory and technique; and (3) the
experience and skill of the person who applied the technique or, in this case, applied the
diagnosis of DID, on the occasion in question. See Kelly, 824 S.W.2d at 573.
We have already considered Kelly’s “experience and skill” factor. See id. As to
the other factors, the defense expert and the State’s expert described the DSM
differently. Dr. Ross testified that the DSM was the basic manual of the American
Psychiatric Association—a manual that contained the rules and criteria for making the
different diagnoses it identified and constituted peer review. Dr. Barden described the
manual as a dictionary or catalog for terms or labels that did not require a scientific basis
13
to be included in the DSM and that may not be generally accepted even though they were
identified in the DSM. In his opinion, the DSM provided terms so that people would use
the same descriptive language in the same manner.6
Both experts testified about DID. Dr. Ross described DID as a subcategory of
dissociative disorders found in the DSM. According to Dr. Ross, DID generally includes
different identities that take turns being in charge of the body. Dr. Ross agreed that
Harris is suffering from DID, but explained he “could very well be wrong.” He testified
that suffering from DID does not automatically mean Harris “doesn’t understand the
wrongfulness of his acts, but it could.” Dr. Barden discredited the basic theory of DID,
describing it as a misdiagnosis, a label, a dangerous mistake, and unreliable junk
science. Dr. Barden testified that he did not believe in DID and that it was harmful to
many of the patients of the psychiatrists who believed such dissociative disorder was a
valid diagnosis, as shown by the number of lawsuits filed in an attempt to “essentially shut
down the [DID] movement.” The experts, in fact, agreed that DID is a highly
controversial theory of dissociative disorders.
In addition, Dr. Barden’s opinions regarding DID and the DSM were supported by
various publications, which he identified in great detail and sponsored to the trial court.7
In contrast, Dr. Ross offered only general testimony about publications he or others in the
area of DID wrote, articles which may have supported his statements that DID is a valid,
6
We are not offering an opinion regarding the nature of the DSM and its role as a tool in the
psychological and psychiatric communities for making mental health diagnoses. We are only outlining
what was before the trial court at the time it made its ruling. See Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms, Inc., 509
U.S. 579, 594, (1993); Coble, 330 S.W.3d at 272.
7
Because Dr. Barden’s referenced publications were sponsored to the trial court and are part of
the appellate record, they play a role in our analysis of the trial court’s exercise of its discretion.
14
peer-reviewed subcategory of dissociative disorders. Dr. Ross offered no testimony
regarding the specific, identifying details of these generally referenced publications. And
although Dr. Ross testified that studies had been conducted in other countries, he did not
discuss the specifics of the studies and the research underlying the tenets he espoused.
See Weatherred, 15 S.W.3d at 542–43; see also Jordan v. State, 950 S.W.2d 210, 212
(Tex. App.—Fort Worth 1997, pet. ref’d) (concluding that the record did not show an
abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court in excluding expert testimony on the
reliability of eyewitness identifications when the proffered expert witness “failed to
mention by name any other person who purports to be an expert in the field or produce or
name the studies he relied on to reach his opinions”). Finally, Dr. Ross offered no
testimony regarding specific publications that supported his opinion regarding the DSM.
Harris had the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that his expert’s
testimony was relevant and reliable and not mere “junk science.” See Weatherred, 15
S.W.3d at 542. The volume of peer review counter to Dr. Ross’s positions is revealing,
for as the Supreme Court set out in Daubert, “[w]idespread acceptance can be an
important factor in ruling particular evidence admissible, and ‘a known technique which
has been able to attract only minimal support within the community,’ may properly be
viewed with skepticism.” Daubert, 509 U.S. at 594 (quoting United States v. Downing,
753 F.2d 1224, 1238 (3rd Cir. 1985)). Considering only what the trial court had before it
at the time it ruled, which included the testimony of both expert witnesses, see id., we
conclude that the trial court could have reasonably concluded that Harris failed to carry
15
his burden of showing that Dr. Ross’s testimony was reliable.8 We cannot conclude that
the trial court’s ruling was arbitrary or unreasonable. See Mechler, 153 S.W.3d at 439.
Its decision was within “the zone of reasonable disagreement.” See Bigon, 252 S.W.3d
at 376. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded Dr.
Ross’s testimony.9 See Coble, 330 S.W.3d at 272. We overrule Harris’s sole issue.
III. CONCLUSION
We affirm the trial court’s judgment.
NELDA V. RODRIGUEZ
Justice
Publish.
TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).
Delivered and filed the
1st day of August, 2013.
8
We express no opinion as to whether testimony as to the other four subcategories of dissociative
disorders could be found reliable in other circumstances.
9
Based on the same analysis, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it
limited Dr. Quijano’s testimony regarding DID.
16