Opinion ID: 2556376
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Guilt by Statistics

Text: The trial in this case was about the individual credibility of both D.L., who on the stand recanted out-of-court statements implicating defendant, and defendant, who protested his innocence and claimed that the police coerced a confession from him through psychological pressures. The jury had to determine whether D.L. was telling the truth, under oath, when she testified or when she spoke to the police. Under our system of justice, we do not permit the jury to assess the credibility of a model victim, a statistical stereotype, and on that basis to infer guilt, no more than we would permit a jury to infer that the defendant on trial must be guilty because most defendants are guilty. Allowing group assessments of credibility to replace individualized assessments of credibility is antithetical to our system of justice. The deleterious impact of the type of testimony presented in this case, which was sanctioned by the trial court, cannot be ignored or wished away. The State presented Dr. Coco as an expert in Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome (CSAAS). The purpose of Dr. Coco's testimony was to explain, generally, the reasons a child would delay reporting sexual abuse or, once reporting the abuse, recant the accusation. See State v. J.Q., 130 N.J. 554, 579, 617 A. 2d 1196 (1993) (citation omitted). CSAAS testimony is not offered as proof of a defendant's guilt. As Dr. Coco conceded: [I]t cannot be offered as a tool to decide whether sexual abuse had happened. See id. at 578, 617 A. 2d 1196 (CSAAS is not relied on in the scientific community to detect abuse.). Yet, Dr. Coco's testimony departed from the strict limitations our law places on CSAAS testimony. During cross-examination, the defense attorney elicited from Dr. Coco that some children falsely report sexual abuse. Then, under the pretext of counsel's having opened the door, the court permitted the prosecutor on redirect examination to introduce statistical evidence that approximately ninety to ninety-five percent of child-sexual-abuse complainants are truthful. Even if the defense attorney cracked the door open slightly into this impermissible area, the trial judge, whose obligation is to ensure the fairness of the proceedings, should not have kicked the door wide open. The jury was permitted to convict defendant based on a simple syllogism totally unrelated to the evidence: if ninety to ninety-five percent of sexual-abuse complainants tell the truth, then D.L. by the laws of statistical probability must have been telling the truth when she reported the sexual abuse to the police; and if D.L. was therefore truthful, then defendant must be lying and guilty of the crimes charged. The defense loudly objected; however, no correction was made by the trial court. The jury was never told that it could not draw the obvious damning inferences that flowed from Dr. Coco's use of statistics to bolster D.L.'s initial complaint. The majority concedes that this testimony was improper and did not fall within the realm of CSAAS evidence, but claims that the error was harmless. Police officers and social-science experts are not allowed to vouch for the credibility of witnesses. See State v. Frisby, 174 N.J. 583, 591-92, 595, 811 A. 2d 414 (2002) (finding plain error in police officer's testimony that potential suspect in child-abuse case was more credible than defendant). [1] In J.Q., we specifically disapproved of a CSAAS expert touting the credibility of an alleged sex-victim whom the expert had interviewed. J.Q., supra, 130 N.J. at 556, 575, 617 A. 2d 1196. Opining on the alleged victims' credibility was an error that went to the heart of the very integrity of the proceedings, and therefore was not deemed harmless. Id. at 556, 617 A. 2d 1196. How much worse in this case where the expertbased on mere statistics placed his authoritative imprimatur on the credibility of D.L. The majority does not deny that the expert misused statistics to support the credibility of D.L. in this case. We disagree about the gravity of that error. For me, the presentation of a statistical, truth-telling, stereotypical victimthat presumably encompassed the alleged victim in this casecannot be harmless. Appellate courts are not required to put blinders on when assessing whether patently inadmissible evidence has the clear capacity to taint the jury. Here, the State's case hinged on the credibility of witness testimony, not physical, objective evidence. The alleged victim testified under oath that her previous statements implicating defendant were false, and defendant on the stand testified that he was innocent and that the police elicited from him a false confession. Given this less than overwhelming evidence of guilt, it is impossible to say that Dr. Coco's impermissible testimony did not tip the scales of justice unfairly against defendant. See Frisby, supra, 174 N.J. at 596, 811 A. 2d 414 (holding that [a]ny improper influence on the jury that could have tipped the credibility scale could not be harmless); R. 2:10-2 (stating that new trial should not be granted unless error was clearly capable of producing an unjust result). Because the error in this case could not be harmless, defendant should be entitled to a new trial. II.