Opinion ID: 2099836
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: evidence of habits of others.

Text: Kentucky State Police Sergeant Linda Rudzinski specializes in child sexual abuse investigations and claimed at trial to have investigated 900 to 1,000 such cases during the three years immediately preceding September 23, 1999, the date she interviewed A.M. Rudzinski testified as follows during direct examination by the prosecutor: Q. Has it been your experience to observe a delay in the date on which a crime is allegedly committed and when it may be reported by these children? Defense counsel: Objection. Court: Overruled. A. Yes, in 90% of the cases I investigate, there is a delay in reporting. Q. Based on your experience in this particular case, is this an example of delayed reporting? Defense counsel: Objection. Court: Approach. (A bench conference ensued, following which the prosecutor stated he would rephrase the question.) Q. Your experience is that in 90% of the cases you deal with, that you've dealt with, there has been a lapse of time before they were reported? A. Yes, regarding child sex abuse cases, yes. There could be only two possible purposes for this line of questioning: (1) to prove that A.M. had, in fact, been abused because, like other abused children, she delayed reporting the abuse; or (2) to disprove an inference of fabrication arising from the delay in reporting. The argument on appeal has centered on whether this testimony amounted to child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome (CSAAS) evidence and whether such evidence, deemed inadmissible in Bussey v. Commonwealth, Ky., 697 S.W.2d 139 (1985) and its progeny up to and including Newkirk v. Commonwealth, Ky., 937 S.W.2d 690 (1996), was rendered admissible by our decision in Stringer v. Commonwealth, Ky., 956 S.W.2d 883 (1997), cert. denied, 523 U.S. 1052, 118 S.Ct. 1374, 140 L.Ed.2d 522 (1998). The Bussey line of cases held that an expert's medical or psychological diagnosis that a child victim was experiencing symptoms of CSAAS was inadmissible either because CSAAS was not a diagnosis generally accepted in the relevant scientific community, Bussey , at 141, or because such evidence may invade the province of the jury by unduly influencing its assessment of credibility. Newkirk , at 693. Rudzinski, however, is not an expert and was not purporting to render a medical opinion that A.M. was suffering from CSAAS. She was offering empirical evidence of her observation of the habit of other abused children, as a class, to delay reporting sexual abuse as proof either that A.M. was sexually abused or that an inference of fabrication should not arise from the fact that she delayed reporting the sexual abuse. In Johnson v. Commonwealth, Ky., 885 S.W.2d 951 (1994), the defendant was convicted of wanton murder after driving his coal truck through a red light and colliding with another vehicle, causing the death of the driver of the other vehicle. At trial, the following occurred during the prosecutor's cross-examination of the defendant: Q. Okay. Some people, who drive these coal trucks make it a practice to run red lights and blow horns, so people will back off and let them come through even though the light is red.... Defense counsel: Objection, your Honor. The Court: Overruled. This is cross examination. Q. Isn't it a fact that that's what you were doing on that particular day? A. No it wasn't. Id. at 953. In reversing, we held that [t]o permit the Commonwealth to cross examine about the habit of a class of individuals for the purpose of showing how one unique individual in that class might have acted on a given occasion would invite the jury to arbitrarily hold an individual responsible based on his membership in the class. Id. at 953. Thus, a party cannot introduce evidence of the habit of a class of individuals either to prove that another member of the class acted the same way under similar circumstances or to prove that the person was a member of that class because he/she acted the same way under similar circumstances. Rudzinski's testimony as to her observation of the habits of sexually abused children, as a class, should have been excluded as irrelevant.