Case Title: The People v. Phillip Riback

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: new-york

Court: New York Appellate Court

Date: 2009-12-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before
publication in the New York Reports.
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No. 170  
The People &c.,
            Respondent,
        v.
Phillip Riback,
            Appellant.
Paul Shechtman, for appellant.
Brett M. Knowles, for respondent.
READ, J.:
In late 2002, defendant Phillip Riback, a pediatric
neurologist, was charged with criminal conduct involving sexual
contact with 14 young male patients whom he treated between 1997
and 2002.  There was extensive media coverage of defendant's
arrest and the charges he faced.  At a lengthy trial in June
2004, the prosecution presented testimony from the 14 boys and
their parents; the two police investigators who interviewed these
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children; a medical conduct investigator for the New York State
Department of Health; a pediatric neurologist; and Dr. Richard
Hamill, a psychologist who oversees one of the State's largest
sex offender treatment programs.  The defense called personnel
from defendant's medical practice -- the administrator, nursing
supervisor, medical secretary, and defendant's secretary; and the
parents of four other boys whom defendant had treated.  Defendant
did not testify.  The defense theory, pursued through cross-
examination of the People's witnesses and in defendant's direct
case, was that any unusual behavior that defendant displayed
toward his patients was designed to create rapport and put them
at ease; and that the most damning accusations made against him
were the distorted or mistaken product of suggestive and coercive
questioning by parents and police.
The jury convicted defendant of 12 felonies and 16
misdemeanors, and County Court imposed a determinate sentence of
48 years of imprisonment and five years of postrelease
supervision.  Defendant then moved pursuant to Criminal Procedure
Law § 440.10 to vacate the judgment of conviction and sentence
based upon evidence turned up during discovery in follow-on civil
litigation and his posttrial diagnosis with Asperger's syndrome. 
County Court issued an order denying the motion, and the
Appellate Division granted defendant permission to appeal the
order, which was consolidated with his direct appeal.  The
Appellate Division subsequently affirmed both the judgment and
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the order, with one Justice dissenting as to the judgment.  The
court exercised its interest-of-justice jurisdiction to reduce
defendant's sentence to 20 years, and the dissenting Justice
granted defendant leave to appeal to us.  We now reverse.
Defendant advances two arguments: that the trial court
erred by allowing Dr. Hamill to testify about the meaning of the
terms "pedophilia," "ephebophilia," and "sexual fetish"; and that
the prosecutor's summation deprived defendant of a fair trial. 
In addition to disputing both propositions on the merits, the
People contend that defendant abandoned his argument about the
admissibility of Dr. Hamill's testimony when he did not press it
in the Appellate Division, and, in any event, that defendant did
not preserve this claim for appellate review by making a specific
objection at trial (see Criminal Procedure Law § 470.05 [2]).  
We may resolve "any question of law involving alleged
error . . . in the criminal court proceedings . . . regardless of
whether such question was raised . . . upon the appeal to the
intermediate appellate court" (Criminal Procedure Law § 470.35
[1] [emphasis added]; see People v Colon, 71 NY2d 410, 413 n 1
[1988]).  For purposes of determining whether we may reach the
alleged trial error in this case, the only relevant consideration
is whether the specific issue was presented to the trial court
for decision.
Here, defense counsel did not object when the
prosecutor asked Dr. Hamill to define the term "ephebophilia." 
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As a result, defendant's argument to us -- that the trial judge
erred when he allowed this testimony because it was not helpful
to the jury and was potentially very prejudicial -- is not
preserved for our review.  Defendant did, however, preserve this
argument with respect to Dr. Hamill's testimony on the meaning of
"sexual fetish" and "pedophilia."  This is apparent from the
judge's on-the-record explanation -- after untranscribed
conferences with the attorneys to hash out the scope of Dr.
Hamill's testimony -- of why he decided to allow the People to
"inquire into the area of sexual fetish," which was followed by a
discussion regarding the permissible extent of Dr. Hamill's
testimony about "pedophilia."  Defense counsel objected after the
explanation, and again after the discussion.  Although these
objections were general in nature, the judge's rulings only make
sense as a response to arguments that Dr. Hamill's testimony
about "sexual fetish" and "pedophilia" would not be helpful to
the jury and was potentially very prejudicial.
As to the merits, we conclude that the trial judge did
not err when he allowed Dr. Hamill to explain what the term
"sexual fetish" means and to give some examples, none of which
described any specific behavior that defendant was alleged to
have exhibited.  This testimony, which County Court took obvious
care to circumscribe, was beyond the ken of the average juror and
was arguably useful to these jurors in their evaluation of the
evidence.  We conclude, however, that the trial judge should not
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have allowed Dr. Hamill to define "pedophilia" and the "central
characteristics" of a "pedophile."  Unfortunately, it is
difficult to imagine that this information was unknown to the
jurors.  Whether this error alone would cause us to reverse the
judgment in this case is beside the point, though, because this
testimony became a springboard for the prosecutor to venture well
beyond the evidence and the bounds of fair comment during his
summation.
The prosecutor told the jurors that they "heard the
definition of a pedophile, didn't you?  Did you hear the
definition of a pedophile from Dr. Richard Hamill?  [Defendant]
can't stop."  A little later he again linked defendant and the
word "pedophile," reminding the jurors that they "heard the
definition of a pedophile.  He's having sex with boys in his
office.  He's not concentrating on medicine.  He's not
concentrating on medical questions.  He's concerned with
gratifying his own sexual desire."
Over objection and for a limited purpose, the trial
judge allowed one of the police investigators to tell the jury
that she interviewed 49 boys whom defendant had treated.  In
summation, the prosecutor parlayed this information into the
following:
"[Prosecutor:] [The police investigator] told you that
49 interviews had taken place, and said some of the --
they're only charges because she talked to the parents,
and the parents didn't want to put their children
through this.  You got 15 sets of parents out here
right now who are probably thinking the same thing
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after they heard what's going on this week."
"[Defense counsel]: Objection, Your Honor.
"THE COURT: Sustained, stricken.  Disregard that,
ladies and gentlemen.
"[Prosecutor]: Do you blame those parents?
"[Defense counsel]: Objection, objection.
"[Prosecutor]: Who doesn't want [not] to put their
children through this?
"[Defense counsel]: Objection, objection.
"THE COURT: Sustained, sustained.  Move on."
This passage suggested to the jurors that defendant had sexually
abused dozens of victims, and that these crimes had not been
charged only because many parents were understandably unwilling
to subject their children to the rigors of a trial.  No evidence
supported this suggestion, which was irrelevant to the charges
against defendant even if true.
Further, one of the 14 boys recalled nothing except
that defendant tickled him during examinations that took place
roughly three years before the trial.  When offered a copy of his
grand jury testimony, this witness said the minutes would not
refresh his recollection; that he couldn't "really remember
anything about" any of his visits to defendant's office; and that
"[i]t's just foggy."  Although the charges related to this boy
were subsequently dismissed, the prosecutor placed an
incriminating gloss on his appearance on the witness stand:
"I picked up a copy of [the boy's] Grand Jury
testimony, which says what he told the police happened
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to him with [defendant], and I said, I'll give you a
copy of this piece of paper with the words on it from
the Grand Jury; will that help you remember what's
going on [?]  [The boy] says, no.  [The boy] didn't
want to remember, doesn't want to remember.  He wants
it to go away . . . Does that give you an idea of how
difficult it is to walk into a courtroom when you're
fourteen or twelve or ten, place your hand on the Bible
. . . in front of fifteen strangers, and talk about
what happened to you at the hands of that man?  That is
a little hint about what it's like." 
Thus, the prosecutor invited the jury to conclude that the boy's
grand jury testimony recounted sexual abuse and that his lapse of
memory showed how hard it was for children to acknowledge or
disclose what defendant had done to them.  
The prosecutor also advised the jury that the case was
not "complex" even though there were "a lot of kids" because
"[a]ll you have to do is believe one kid.  You believe one child
and it's over, because this huge grand conspiracy . . ., it's a
house of cards . . . If you believe one child, you can believe
all."  These comments potentially diverted the jurors from their
obligation to consider defendant's guilt or innocence as to each
crime charged with respect to each child.  And although it was
the prosecutor who persuaded County Court to sharply limit the
number of parents of former patients testifying on defendant's
behalf, he remarked to the jury "Congratulations.  They found
four patients he didn't molest."  Finally, the prosecutor
observed, "[g]et enough lawyers involved and jury consultants to
make sure they pick the perfect jury."  This intimated that
defendant was exploiting his wealth to engineer a sympathetic
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jury, and that the jurors should not let him get away with it.
As the dissenting Justice in the Appellate Division put
it, these numerous "summation misstatements of fact and law . . .
when combined with the opinion by the prosecutor that defendant's
acts were those of a pedophile, . . . rose to such a level that
defendant was deprived of the fair trial to which he was
entitled" (People v Riback, 57 AD3d 1209, 1220 [3d Dept 2008]
[Malone, J., dissenting]).  We recognize that County Court
repeatedly sustained defense counsel's objections during the
prosecutor's summation, and instructed the jury to disregard
parts of it.  After a certain point, though, the cumulative
effect of a prosecutor's improper comments during summation may
overwhelm a defendant's right to a fair trial (see People v
Calabria, 94 NY2d 519, 523 [2000]).  Given the inflammatory
nature of the charges in this case, there was a reasonable
possibility that this prosecutorial misconduct contributed to the
verdict.
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should
be reversed, and a new trial ordered.
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Order reversed and a new trial ordered.  Opinion by Judge Read.
Chief Judge Lippman and Judges Ciparick, Graffeo, Smith, Pigott
and Jones concur.
Decided December 1, 2009