Opinion ID: 1168287
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: denial of examination of victim.

Text: Bingham asserts that the trial court should have granted his motion for leave to employ a child psychologist or other expert to examine the victim and to report on her competency and ability to receive impressions of facts and to relate them accurately. Under the circumstances of this case, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying this motion. Bingham was determined to be an indigent person and counsel was appointed to represent him. Under I.C. § 19-852(a)(2) Bingham was entitled to be provided with the necessary services and facilities of representation (including investigation and other preparation). In State v. Olin, 103 Idaho 391, 395, 648 P.2d 203, 207 (1982), this Court provided the standard against which the trial court's decision to deny services and facilities of representation is to be measured: It is thus incumbent upon the trial court to inquire into the needs of the defendant and the circumstances of the case, and then make a determination of whether an adequate defense will be available to the defendant without the requested expert or investigative aid. If the answer is in the negative, then the services are necessary and must be provided by the state. Such a review necessarily involves the exercise of the sound discretion of the trial court. Bingham stated in his motion that the reason he was requesting leave to employ an expert was because the state intended to offer the testimony of police officers, medical personnel and family members as to statements made to them by the victim. The motion concluded: In effect, the alleged victim will be a witness against the Defendant by testifying at the trial through the mouths of said officers, medical personnel and family members. Therefore, Defendant will have no opportunity at the trial to challenge the competency of the victim to thusly testify or to otherwise impeach the testimony of said victim witness except through what information might be obtained as a result of an evaluation of her by a duly qualified child psychologist or other person properly trained in the evaluation of retarded children. At the hearing on this motion, counsel for Bingham elaborated on the need for the expert assistance: There is no way we can exercise our right to confront and cross examine [the victim]. That is a right that is very basic to a Defendant in a criminal case. The only opportunity that we would have to test the competency of [the victim] and to challenge her credibility would be through some testing done by a child psychologist or other qualified expert. ... . Therefore we are asking the Court to allow us to employ an expert, and I suppose it would be a child psychologist, who would examine [the victim] and we would ask for a court order that she be made available for that examination as the State's right to continue this prosecution, and that the expert determine her ability or inability to perceive or experience an event and then recall it and accurately relate it. Secondly, we would ask that the expert determine whether she knows and understands the difference between truth and falsity. Thirdly, we would ask that the expert evaluate and determine [the victim's] vulnerability to the power of suggestion. Almost everything incriminating that she has said against the defendant came in response to a very leading question and it is possible that she was simply responding with an answer that she thought the person asking the question wanted, being influenced by the power of suggestion. The evidence that will be introduced with respect to her statements are very incriminating, perhaps the best evidence the State has in this case, and short of having an expert evaluate [the victim] we are left without an opportunity to cross-examine that critical State's witness. In opposing the motion, the prosecutor offered to agree that an expert should be appointed, if defense counsel would stipulate that the statements the victim had made to others would be admissible under the exceptions to the hearsay rule. The prosecutor pointed out that the victim's credibility and the reliability of the statements would have to be considered by the trial court before the statements could be admitted. He suggested that the remedy for all of the concerns that Bingham had about the statements was to call the victim as an adverse witness at trial. He referred to an examination of a child psychologist, Dr. Burke, who had examined the victim and who had testified at the preliminary hearing. Bingham's attorney countered by arguing that if the state were to call the victim as a witness, the trial court would have to determine her competency before she would be allowed to testify. The trial court denied the motion on the grounds that there is sufficient evidence now and the examination is already done that will determine the problem [defense counsel] is mentioning. Apparently the examination to which the trial court referred was the one conducted by Dr. Burke. Since the transcript of the preliminary hearing is not part of the record before us, we are unable to review the content of that testimony. However, Dr. Burke did testify at trial. At trial his testimony was limited to his opinion of the mental age of the victim. For the purposes of our discussion here, we assume that his testimony at the preliminary hearing was similar. The victim was not called as a witness at the trial either by the state or by Bingham. Statements she had made concerning the charges against Bingham were admitted through the testimony of Dr. Smith, the victim's mother and the police officer who questioned the victim after the incident. No objection was made to the testimony of Dr. Smith as to the statements the victim had made to him. Bingham's attorney objected to the testimony of the victim's mother as to the statements the victim had made to her. The trial court overruled the objection, except as to a statement that tended to indicate that Bingham had penetrated the victim with his penis. This statement was revealed in an offer of proof to the trial court and was never presented to the jury. Over Bingham's objection, the trial court also allowed the police officer to testify as to what the victim had told her about the incident. Dr. Burke was called as a witness at the trial. He testified that based on his examination of the victim and her prior medical history the victim had a mental age of approximately five years. Defense counsel did not cross-examine Dr. Burke. We are left with the question posed in Olin of whether an adequate defense was available to Bingham without the expert examination of the victim he sought. In reviewing this question in connection with Bingham's motion for new trial, the trial court noted: It was not necessary to have this mentally handicapped child of tender years examined by an expert to determine her `ability to testify and recall events' as asserted by defendant, simply because she did not testify at trial. In State v. Filson, 101 Idaho 381, 613 P.2d 938 (1980) the Supreme Court held it was not necessary to order a psychological evaluation of prosecutrix absent a showing of compelling need. In the present case it was obvious that the victim was somewhat retarded and mentally handicapped, however, she attended school, reads, writes, did school homework and performed her household chores with reliability. With respect to her ability to communicate, the record is clear that the victim is able to discuss school activities and is capable of describing pain or illness to her mother, physicians and school teachers. This rationale overlooks the real point of Bingham's motion  how to defend against statements made by the victim to others, when the victim herself was not called as a witness. The trial court knew at the time of the hearing on the motion that the state did not intend to call the victim. The grounds used by the trial court in denying the motion (that there is sufficient evidence now and the examination is already done) could hardly have been any solace to defense counsel. What Bingham's attorney needed to provide an adequate defense for his client was a means of testing the victim's competency and ability to perceive events correctly and report them accurately. It is precisely because the victim did not testify that this need was so great. The ultimate question we must address is what use Bingham's attorney could have made of the testimony of an expert, if the motion had been granted, and if the examination had caused the expert to conclude that the victim could not perceive events correctly and report them accurately. The implication of Bingham's argument is that testimony of an expert would have been admissible to attack the credibility of the victim's statements. Bingham cites I.R.E. 806 as authority for the admissibility of this evidence. This rule provides that when a hearsay statement has been admitted in evidence, the credibility of the declarant may be attacked. This Court has held that [t]he admissibility of expert testimony is discretionary with the trial court ..., and [that] absent an abuse of discretion, a decision will not be disturbed on appeal. State v. Griffiths, 101 Idaho 163, 165, 610 P.2d 522, 524 (1980); State v. Hoisington, 104 Idaho 153, 165, 657 P.2d 17, 29 (1983). In Hoisington we rejected expert testimony on the reliability of witness identification. In doing so the Court noted that `the trustworthiness in general of eye witness observations, was not beyond the ken of the jurors.' 104 Idaho at 165, 657 P.2d at 29. The jury here had the benefit of the testimony of the victim's mother concerning the victim's mental retardation and her loss of hearing. The mother testified that the victim was reading and writing at the third grade level, that she enjoyed homework, played the guitar, played on an electric typewriter, helped with the dishes, cooked scrambled eggs in the microwave and took out the garbage. She stated that the victim was able to follow through with her instructions. She also said that the victim was able to communicate with her and to discuss her day at school accurately. The mother noted that the victim doesn't understand lies, ... she doesn't understand not telling the truth, she tells it the way it happened. The mother also testified that she was able to confirm through a doctor that the victim accurately reported that she had an earache. She also said she could confirm the accuracy of the victim's reporting of instructions from teachers concerning homework. She stated that she was able to rely on what the victim told her and that the victim was able to understand what she told her. Dr. Burke testified that although the victim was only about five years old mentally, this related to her potential for future learning and not to other areas of her functioning. With regard to the determination of her mental age he said: However, it doesn't survey the total person, and therefore, there's many areas of her functioning that could be higher than that, because she obviously had over twelve years of experience of living, so even though we say she was at five, doesn't mean that her total makeup and total personality and total learning is at age five. We conclude that there was no reasonable implication that the victim was impaired in her ability to correctly perceive events and accurately report them. Her handicap was in her potential for future learning. As in Hoisington, it was not beyond the ken of the jurors to determine the victim's ability to perceive events correctly and report them accurately. While we caution our trial courts not to deny appointed defense counsel the services and facilities they need to provide indigent defendants with an adequate defense, we are unable to say that the denial of an examination of the victim by a child psychologist or other expert in this case violated Bingham's rights under I.C. § 19-852.