Title: State v. Gherasim

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

Filed:  July 29, 1999

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON

STATE OF OREGON,

	Petitioner on Review,

	v.

GABRIEL GHERASIM,

	Respondent on Review.

(CC C951646CR; CA A94556; SC S45379)

	On review from the Court of Appeals.*

	Argued and submitted January 8, 1999.

	Ann Kelley, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the
cause and filed the petition for petitioner on review.  With her
on the brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Michael D.
Reynolds, Solicitor General.

	Jesse Wm. Barton, Deputy Public Defender, Salem, argued the
cause and filed the petition for respondent on review.  With him
on the brief was David E. Groom, State Public Defender.

	Before Carson, Chief Justice, and Gillette, Van Hoomissen,
Durham, Leeson, and Riggs, Justices.**

	LEESON, J.

	The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.  The
judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the case is
remanded to the circuit court for a new trial.

	*Appeal from Washington County Circuit Court,

	Timothy P. Alexander, Judge.

	153 Or App 313, 956 P2d 1054 (1998).

	**Kulongoski, J., did not participate in the consideration
or decision of this case.

	LEESON, J.

	The issue in this criminal case is whether the trial
court erred by not allowing defendant's expert witness to testify
that the victim suffered from dissociative amnesia.  The Court of
Appeals held that the trial court erred and reversed and remanded
the case for a new trial.  State v. Gherasim, 153 Or App 313, 956
P2d 1054 (1998).  We affirm.

	Defendant was charged with first-degree kidnaping, ORS
163.235; attempted first-degree rape, ORS 161.405 and ORS
163.375; first-degree sex abuse, ORS 163.427; fourth-degree
assault, ORS 163.160; and menacing, ORS 163.190.  It is
uncontested that the victim was assaulted physically and sexually
on the night of July 12, 1995, and that the victim was in
defendant's car that night.  The disputed issue at trial was
whether defendant or someone else assaulted the victim.

	At trial, the victim identified defendant as her
assailant.  Defendant maintained that someone else had assaulted
the victim before he came on the scene and tried to assist her.  
Neither the victim nor defendant presented eye-witnesses or
forensic evidence at trial.  Consequently, whether the jury
believed the victim's or defendant's account of what had occurred
was critical to its determination whether defendant was guilty of
the crimes.

	The victim's statements to the police on the night of
the assault and her grand jury and trial testimony several months
later contained discrepancies.  The Court of Appeals summarized
those discrepancies as follows: 

		"[The victim] gave her first account to Officer Noragon
of the Tualatin Police Department within an hour after the
attack on July 12[, 1995].  Noragon's police report reflects
the following statements:  [The victim] told Noragon that
her assailant spoke to her using very good Spanish.  She
said that he drove a big green car--big enough for her to
stand up in.  She described her assailant's clothing as a
long-sleeved shirt of indeterminate color, possibly white,
and possibly a tie and a vest.  [The victim] said that her
assailant slapped and hit her and then held a knife to her
neck and her waist and told her to remove her clothes and to
sit on his lap.  She described the knife as 12 inches long
and 1 to 1½ inches wide, with a brown handle and white
blade.  [The victim] told Noragon that her assailant's pants
were open, but his underwear [was] on.  Using her bent
finger, she gestured for Noragon that her assailant's penis
was not erect.

		"[The victim] next related the events before the
grand jury on July 25, 1995.  She testified that her
assailant wore a long-sleeved shirt and a vest.  When
she got inside the car, she put on a seat/shoulder
belt.  His Spanish was good.  He put a white knife with
a brown handle against her side.  He told her to take
off her panties and sit on top of him.

		"At trial, on May 16 and 17, 1996, [the victim]
testified that her assailant could not speak Spanish
very well.  She denied having told Noragon that her
assailant wore a long-sleeved shirt, vest and tie or
that he drove a big green car.  [The victim] confirmed
that the car was green, but stated that she could not
remember the size of the car.  She testified that she
had not told police that her assailant's shirt was
white or long-sleeved.  She gave inconsistent testimony
during cross-examination about whether she was always
standing in her assailant's car, or sitting at first,
but later standing.  She denied having been hit with a
fist, and gave inconsistent testimony about whether she
had told police that she had been slapped.  She denied
having told police that her assailant's pants were
open, that his penis was not erect, or that he told her
to sit on his lap.  She described the knife as about
eight or nine inches long, with a brown handle and
white blade.  She could not identify defendant's knife. 
[The victim] gave inconsistent testimony about whether
there were seatbelts in her assailant's car:  at first
she testified that there were no seat belts, but later
indicated that there may have been a shoulder belt
only."

Gherasim, 153 Or App at 316-17 (footnote omitted).  The Court 
of Appeals also summarized defendant's version of what
occurred:

		"At trial, defendant testified that, when he saw [the
victim], she was crouched by the side of the road next to a
tree.  Because she appeared to need help, he stopped and
asked her if she was all right.  She responded, 'Tigard,
Tigard,' and defendant asked her if she needed a ride to
Tigard.  [The victim] responded, 'yes,' and defendant
unlocked the door so she could get in.  As she entered his
car, defendant realized that she was partially undressed and
carrying some clothes.  He told her he would pull off onto a
side street so that she could put her clothes on with some
privacy.  He stopped the car so that she could put her
clothes on, and [the victim] became agitated, screaming at
defendant and pounding him with her fists.  Eventually,
because defendant was afraid for his safety, he showed her a
knife that he kept in the car, and then [the victim] threw
her clothes in his face and ran from the car.  Shortly
thereafter, defendant located a police officer and told him
about the encounter.  Defendant also testified that,
although he speaks Romanian (he was born in Romania) and
Italian fluently, he does not speak Spanish." 

Id. at 317.

	At trial, defendant sought to introduce the testimony
of an expert witness, a psychiatrist, who would testify that the
victim experienced dissociative amnesia, a condition that
affected her ability to recall accurately at trial what had
occurred on the night that she was assaulted.  The state objected
to allowing defendant's expert witness to testify.  The trial
court expressed its concern that the expert's testimony would be
an impermissible comment on the victim's credibility.  The trial
court allowed defendant to make an offer of proof by having his
expert testify outside the presence of the jury, followed by
cross-examination by the state and re-examination by defendant. 
Defendant initially inquired of the expert as follows:

		"Q.  Doctor, have you had a chance to review * * *
a transcript of the testimony of [the victim] and the
police reports in this case?

		"A.  Yes.  

		"Q.  After reviewing the police reports, * * * do
you have an opinion with respect to [the victim], as to
whether or not she suffered from any disorders as a
result of the incident?  

		"A.  Yes, I do. 

		"Q.  Would you please tell us that opinion?  

		"A.  My opinion, from looking at this material, is
that she suffers from a dissociative amnesic disorder.  

		"Q.  Why?

		"A.  The information would seem to indicate a
degree of amnesia or lack of memory of what went on,
conflicting kinds of responses to what went on at that
incident.  She admits in her testimony, on a number of
occasions, that she was very nervous, very frightened,
that her mind wasn't functioning or on what was going
on, which is not uncommon * * * after a traumatic
incident of this nature, with normal people."

	After that exchange, defendant asked the trial court
whether the expert's testimony satisfied the trial court's
concerns.  The court instructed defendant that he needed to fit
the testimony into the framework provided by State v. Middleton,
294 Or 427, 657 P2d 1215 (1983) (expert may testify generally
about how mental or emotional factors might influence behavior of
member of identifiable group), and to avoid the difficulties of
State v. Munro, 68 Or App 63, 680 P2d 708, rev den 297 Or 459
(1984) (witness cannot comment on credibility of another
witness).  Defendant continued his examination of the expert:

		"Q.  [U]nder our legal standards, the law does not
permit a witness to testify with respect to the
credibility or truthfulness of a particular witness. 
Are you testifying to that effect here?  

		"A.  No.  No.  I think that the transcript and the
written statement of the * * * victim, there is no
question as to her, in my opinion, conscious intent at
truthfulness.  I think that the inconsistencies that
appear in the police reports and in her own words,
saying, 'I don't remember,' validate my conclusion in
terms of the diagnosis.  I think she's credible in
term[s] of her efforts to do the best she can.  It's
not a question of truthfulness.  It's a question of her
mental ability to perform, having experienced what
would appear to be a traumatic encounter.  

		"Q.  If a group of individuals had suffered a
traumatic encounter, such as being kidnaped and being
sexually assaulted, would a person that had been
subjected to that kind of an assault have emotional
factors that would influence their ability to remember
the events with precision?  

		"A.  Yes.  

		"Q.  And would this hold true with respect to a
group of people, as opposed to a particular individual?

		"A.  Yes." 

	The state's cross-examination included the following:

		"Q.  * * * Would you repeat for me the words of
what you called the disorder, * * * 

		"A.  Dissociative amnesia.

		"* * * * * 

		"Q.  Is it a condition or a disorder?

		"A.  It's a condition.

		"Q.  A condition.  So when you say 'dissociative
amnesia,' is that a diagnosis?

		"A.  Yes.

		"Q.  A medical diagnosis?

		"A.  Yes.

		"Q.  Are you making a medical diagnosis in this
case?

		"A.  It's a medical opinion.

		"Q.  Can you tell the jury that you are diagnosing
[the victim] with dissociative amnesia?

		"A.  I can tell the jury that from the information
available to me, it would appear that that condition
pertains to the situation.

		"Q.  But you can't tell them that you are
diagnosing her as suffering from that?

		"A.  Well, 'suffering' is an ongoing term.  It
[is] related to this incident and her recall of the
incident, that she does have an amnesic problem, it
would seem, by virtue of my looking at her written
information, the police information, and the
transcripts of her testimony.

		"Q.  So you are giving an opinion about her mental
ability to perform when she is reporting the crime, her
mental ability to --

		"A.  Her recall of the incident.

		"Q.  -- to recall.

		"A.  Memory.

		"Q.  So you're saying that she cannot recall the
incident?

		"A.  Yes.

		"Q.  And, in your opinion, she's confused about
what she's saying?

		"A.  It's my opinion that she's confusing the
events.

		"Q.  The events?  Which events?

		"A.  The activities of the defendant here and the
activities wherein she was assaulted.

		"Q.  Well, where do you find the information on
the police reports or her transcript that there were
two separate events?

		"A.  She describes different information than
would apparently pertain to the arrest of the
defendant.

		"Q.  I'm sorry.  I don't understand what you mean.

		"A.  For instance, she doesn't describe a colored
shirt, and the defendant apparently was wearing one. 
She doesn't describe the seat belt in his car.  There
is quite a bit of questioning about a seat belt
situation, and she says that the only type of seat belt
she knows about is one that goes around your waist. 
And then she's -- it looks like sort of led in
questioning, one way or another.

		"It would be my opinion that she's combining two
incidents -- one of a rescue situation, one of an
attack situation -- in her mind, retrospectively.  It
seems as though she's confused the two together.

		"Q.  So the bottom line is that you don't believe
the story that she's telling?

		"A.  I believe that she believes what she's
saying.

		"Q.  But you believe that that's not the truth?

		"A.  I didn't say anything about truth.  I believe
that she's telling the truth as she knows it.

		"Q.  But you believe that that isn't the truth?

		"A.  No.  I believe that she has confused a
situation because of an amnesic problem.

		"Q.  You believe that there are other facts that
she's not talking about?

		"A.  No.  I don't think she's doing anything
volitionally.

		"Q.  You believe that there are other facts that
she is not able to talk about?

		"A.  I think there are other facts that she
doesn't remember."

	On redirect examination, defendant asked the expert:

		"Q.  [D]o you believe that [the victim's] conduct,
as it relates to having this dissociative amnesia,
compares with similarly situated people who have been
subjected to violent attacks?

		"A.  Yes."

	The trial court concluded that the opinions that the
expert stated during cross-examination, namely, that the victim
was combining a "rescue situation" and an "attack situation," and
that "there are other facts that she doesn't remember," were
impermissible comments on the victim's credibility. 
Consequently, it excluded the expert's testimony.  The court
explained that, if it were to permit the expert to testify, it
would limit the testimony to the expert's generalized opinion
that "people who go through stressful events have trouble
remembering."  The court concluded that such a general statement
would not be helpful to the jury, because both defendant and the
victim had experienced stress on the night of July 12, 1995, and
both could use that statement to argue that the other did not
remember accurately what had occurred.  Finally, the court stated
that "the average person on [the] jury can conclude from their
own experience that when you go through a stressful event,
sometimes it's difficult to remember parts of it."  

	On appeal, defendant argued that the trial court erred
in excluding the testimony of defendant's expert witness that, in
his opinion, the victim suffered from dissociative amnesia.  The
Court of Appeals agreed.  It explained that dissociative amnesia
"is a recognized diagnosis appearing in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 478 (4th ed 1994) (DSM-IV)."  Gherasim, 153 Or App at 315 n 1.  According to the Court
of Appeals, dissociative amnesia is "a psychological condition in
which victims involuntarily block from their conscious minds the
details of traumatic events, with the resulting memory gaps being
filled with details from later events ('dissociation')."  Id. at
315 (emphasis added).  

	We do not find the foregoing emphasized material in the
DSM-IV.  Nor did defendant's expert assert that one of the
characteristics of dissociative amnesia is that memory gaps are
filled with details from later events.  The DSM-IV describes the
"predominant disturbance" associated with dissociative amnesia as
"one or more episodes of inability to recall important personal
information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature, that is
too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness."  DSM-IV
at 481.  Dissociative amnesia "most commonly presents as a
retrospectively reported gap or series of gaps in recall for
aspects of the individual's life history.  These gaps are usually
related to traumatic or extremely stressful events."  Id. at 478.

  	The Court of Appeals held that the expert's testimony
about his diagnosis of dissociative amnesia was admissible as
"capacity" evidence, because it related to the victim's "ability
to accurately perceive, remember, and recount the critical
events."  Gherasim, 153 Or App at 320-21.  Therefore, the Court
of Appeals reversed and remanded the case for a new trial.  

	The state sought review on the ground that the expert's
diagnosis of dissociative amnesia, which he gave on direct
examination during the offer of proof, and the consequences of
that diagnosis, which he gave during cross-examination,
"reasonably could be considered an impermissible comment" on the
victim's credibility.  The state took no exception to the
expert's testimony, given during re-direct examination, about the
general behavior of a group of people who suffer traumas similar
to the one that the victim suffered.  In the alternative, the
state sought review on the ground that the trial court did not
abuse its discretion in finding that the testimony of defendant's
expert about his diagnosis of dissociative amnesia would be
"confusing, commonly understood, or otherwise not helpful."  In
its brief on the merits, the state concedes that it is "willing
to assume that the [expert's] testimony was not improper
credibility testimony."  In light of the state's concession, the
issue on review is whether the trial court erred in refusing to
admit the expert's testimony about his diagnosis that the victim
suffered from dissociative amnesia on the ground that it would
not have been helpful to the jury.

	We review the trial court's order to exclude expert
testimony to determine whether the court applied the correct
principles of law and did not abuse its discretion.  See Yundt v.
D & D Bowl, Inc., 259 Or 247, 256, 486 P2d 553 (1971) (explaining
standard of review); see also Madrid v. Robinson, 324 Or 561,
563, 931 P2d 791 (1997) (court reviews exclusion of expert
testimony to determine whether trial court applied correct
principle of law).  Expert testimony is admissible if the
expert's opinion "will assist the trier of fact to understand the
evidence or to determine a fact in issue."  OEC 702; see also
Middleton, 294 Or at 435 ("the test is whether the expert's
testimony, if believed, will be of help or assistance to the
jury") (quoting State v. Stringer, 292 Or 388, 391, 639 P2d 1264
(1982)).

	In this case, we conclude that the expert's testimony
about his diagnosis of dissociative amnesia would have been
helpful and that its exclusion was not harmless.  The
determination of defendant's guilt primarily depended on whether
the jury believed the victim's or defendant's version of what had
occurred.  Defendant's expert would have testified that, in his
opinion, the victim suffered from dissociative amnesia and that
that condition affected her capacity to remember what had
occurred on the night that she was assaulted.  The testimony was
evidence that defendant was entitled to present to the jury.  See
Middleton, 294 Or at 436  (explaining that emotional antecedent
of behavior could help jury assess witness's credibility).  The
state argues that the expert's testimony would not have been
helpful, because the expert "offered his diagnosis without
telling the court what the diagnosis meant."  Although the expert
did not explain his diagnosis in detail, that lack of detail did
not render his testimony "unhelpful" to the jury.

	The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.  The
judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the case is
remanded to the circuit court for a new trial.