Psychology Expert’s Testimony on the Impact of Decades of Incarceration Admitted
Posted on May 28, 2025 by Expert Witness Profiler
The Plaintiff, Glynn Simmons, was wrongfully imprisoned for nearly 49 years after a 1974 murder conviction and was exonerated in 2023. He filed a civil rights lawsuit seeking damages for the constitutional violations that led to his wrongful conviction and decades of incarceration.
As a result, Simmons sued the City of Edmond, the City of Oklahoma City, former Oklahoma City Police Detective Shobert, and the estate of former Edmond Police Detective Sergeant Anthony David Garrett (Garrett).
In other words, Plaintiff alleged that they suppressed exculpatory evidence and fabricated evidence, violating his Fourteenth Amendment rights.
To support his claims, he retained Dr. Shirley Saar-McPherson, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, to conduct a comprehensive psychological evaluation to assess his potential mental health diagnoses and their causes.
City contended that Saar’s opinion is unreliable because she only formed this opinion for the purposes of testifying and did not treat the evaluation as carefully as she would have in her practice outside of paid consulting.
Psychology Expert Witness
Shirley Saar-McPherson is a a clinical psychologist with over two decades of
experience. Basically, she earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology with a concentration in forensic psychology, and has numerous publications in her field.
Discussion by the Court
The City argued that Saar’s opinion was inherently unreliable because it was prepared solely for litigation and lacked the same level of care and rigor she would typically apply in her regular clinical practice. According to the City, the evaluation was not conducted under the same professional standards expected outside the context of paid expert testimony.
The City further asserted that the limited basis for her opinion, consisting of just two Zoom interviews and remote testing, rendered her conclusions methodologically weak and scientifically unsound.
After reviewing the submissions from both parties, the Court found that Saar’s testimony satisfied the requirements of Federal Rule of Evidence 702, which governs the admissibility of expert testimony. The Court concluded that her opinion was grounded in sufficient facts and data and was derived using reliable principles and methods appropriate to her field.
Also, the Court acknowledged that the City’s criticisms about the limited interaction and remote testing methodology might raise valid concerns regarding the thoroughness of Saar’s evaluation. However, it held that such concerns relate to the weight of the testimony rather than its admissibility. These are matters best explored through cross-examination, not exclusion.
Held
The Court denied the City’s motion to exclude the testimony of Plaintiff’s expert witness Shirley Saar-McPherson.
Key Takeaway:
Despite being based upon two zoom meetings and remote testing, the Court found that Saar’s opinion was based on sufficient facts and data and is the product of reliable principles and methods.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Simmons v. City of Edmond |
| Docket Number: | 5:24cv97 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma |
| Order Date: | April 4, 2025 |
