Opinion ID: 2623482
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Dr. Krugman's testimony bolsters Dr. Wolf's testimony.

Text: Dr. Wolf's testimony went to the central issue of whether Dague's action was knowing. He testified that her act was reflexive rather than knowing. He described the conditions typically leading up to child abuse and found them to be present in Dague's case. The State attempted to discredit Dr. Wolf's testimony. It elicited testimony that he usually testifies for the defense in criminal cases and that he primarily deals with issues of substance abuse and sexual abuse rather than child abuse. The State also questioned Wolf about a book concerning child abuse that he had mentioned in a pretrial interview. In particular, the State was interested in the timing of Wolf's discovery of the book, Abusing Family. Wolf admitted that he looked for and found the book this weekend. The State also pointed out that Dr. Wolf's conclusions were for the most part based on what Dague had told him and emphasized that Dague had suffered no loss of memory or intellectual functioning. Dr. Krugman gave testimony at the remand hearing that would have supported Dr. Wolf's testimony in important respects. He described the same stress factors leading to abuse. He described the typical act of abuse as an explosion of rage, a description much like Wolf's reflexive action testimony. He stated repeatedly and in different ways that most abusers do not act knowingly. This testimony would have given strong credence to Wolf's testimony that Dague had not acted knowingly.