[1] The Court ruled on the admissibility of clinical opinions given by two psychiatrists hired by the prosecution in answer to hypothetical questions regarding the defendant's future dangerousness and the likelihood that he would present a continuing threat to society in this Texas death penalty case.

[2][3] In Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454 (1981), the Supreme Court previously ruled on a Texas death penalty case regarding the use of a psychiatric examination to determine the defendant's competency to stand trial to predict future dangerousness.

The Court reasoned that although a defendant has no generalized constitutional right to remain silent at a psychiatric examination limited to the issues of sanity or competency, full Miranda warnings must be given with respect to testimony concerning future dangerousness.

[4] Along with other evidence, the prosecution called two psychiatrists who, answering hypothetical questions, testified that Barefoot was likely to remain a danger to society.

[6] There is no merit to petitioner's argument that psychiatrists, individually and as a group, are incompetent to predict with an acceptable degree of reliability that a particular criminal will commit other crimes in the future, and so represent a danger to the community.

[1] The Court's decision in this death penalty case was very important in influencing the legal opinion regarding psychiatric predictions of dangerousness, a position with which the American Psychiatric Association and other medical ethicists disagree, leading some experts to conclude that a psychiatrist making such statements verges on the brink of being a quack.