Opinion ID: 2633881
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Cross-examination of Dr. Yarvis

Text: Defendant contends misconduct occurred when the prosecutor asked questions during the cross-examination of defense expert Dr. Yarvis concerning the terms sexual psychopath and sadistic rape and other aspects of the psychology of rapists. He argues the questions exceeded the scope of the direct examination and were asked only to insinuate without any evidentiary support that, for example, defendant was a sexual psychopath who engaged in sadistic rape. After the trial court sustained defendant's initial objection to a question about the term sexual psychopath, and thereafter clarified the acceptable scope of cross-examination on the subject of the psychology of rapists, defendant did not object to the prosecutor's subsequent questions on this subject, nor claim the prosecutor had engaged in misconduct or ask the court to give an admonition to the jury. Defendant therefore may not raise this claim on appeal. In any event, his claim also is without merit, because there was nothing deceptive, reprehensible, or improper about these questions, which were well within the scope of questioning permitted by the court and, being general questions about the psychology of rape without reference to defendant or the circumstances of this case, in no way improperly impl[ied] or insinuate[d] the truth of the facts about which questions are posed. ( Visciotti supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 52, 5 Cal.Rptr.2d 495, 825 P.2d 388.)