Opinion ID: 2247066
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Sandra Baca.

Text: Dr. Sandra Baca was the next witness for the prosecution. Immediately prior to Dr. Baca's taking the stand, appellant did not object that she was not qualified to testify as an expert, or offer any other objections to her testimony. Dr. Baca testified that she was a clinical director of the About Face Domestic Violence Intervention Project. As the clinical director, her responsibilities included conducting individual and group therapy, supervising and training a staff of 15 people, and writing reports to the court. About Face was formed in 1986 and, among other things, provided services for perpetrators and victims of domestic violence, and their children. Dr. Baca stated that she came in direct contact with approximately 250 victims of domestic violence annually. As for her educational background, Dr. Baca testified that she had a doctorate in psychology with a focus on family psychology and individual psychology. As regards her domestic violence experience, besides writing her doctoral dissertation on a family that suffered from domestic violence, she was in the process of conducting research that entailed administering a personality test on battered women and comparing their profiles. In addition, Dr. Baca was involved with four organizations related to domestic violence, including the Los Angeles Domestic Violence Council and California Alliance of Domestic Violence, and had trained police detectives on investigating reports of domestic violence. She stated she had testified in court for both the prosecution and defense in over 100 cases. Dr. Baca discussed the cycle of violence associated with battered woman syndrome and the common behavioral characteristics of victims experiencing the syndrome. This cycle consists of three phases: (1) tension phasecommon stress; (2) acute batteryemotional and physical abuse; and (3) honeymoon/contritionrelationship is once again fixed and victim decides to remain in the relationship. The cycle then repeats itself over and over, with the abusive period becoming longer and longer, as well as increasing in severity, and the honeymoon period shorter and shorter. After explaining this phenomenon, Dr. Baca testified that in her experience, she has witnessed a battered woman minimize and even recant a version of events in order to help her cope with the abusive relationship. When this happens, she stated it is common for a victim of spousal abuse to protect the abuser by completely denying the incident and being reluctant to testify in court. On cross-examination, Dr. Baca testified that although she was a licensed marriage and family counselor, she was not a licensed clinical psychologist. She stated that had taken the written exam as the first step to become licensed as a clinical psychologist, but she did not pass. Appellant's counsel made only a few objections during Dr. Baca's testimony. When asked by the prosecutor whether, based on her training and experience, she had been able to determine certain characteristics of victims as a class with regard to domestic violence, appellant objected on the grounds of foundation. This objection was overruled. The next objection occurred after the prosecutor asked the witness to assume the following facts: You have a couple for whom there's been a history of domestic violence, and an incident occurs where the perpetrator makes a threat upon that person and then destroys some of his or her property. [¶] Assume the fact that at some point the victim in this case changes her mind, minimizes or recants some, if not all, of the facts. [¶] Assume for a moment that the victim takes every possible step at some point after the incident to make sure that either the charges are dropped or that nothing happened and that it was all that person's fault. [¶] ... Assume also from this set of facts that these people are not back together. Appellant's objections of compound, lengthy, confusing, unintelligible were overruled. Dr. Baca then was asked if these facts were consistent with someone who was battered and suffered the effects of battering, and consistent with a victim in a cycle of violence. She answered each question in the affirmative. Dr. Baca was the final prosecution witness in its case-in-chief. The People rested.