Opinion ID: 2638921
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Error in Admission of Irrelevant and Highly Prejudicial Evidence Concerning Perritt's Husband

Text: [¶ 25] The central feature of Perritt's alleged wrongdoing was her failure to reveal that her husband, a convicted felon, was in her household where she was going to conduct a day care business. As the gravamen of the offense at issue here, the prosecution needed to prove that Perritt's husband had been convicted of a felony and that he was in the home and had access to the children. [¶ 26] Throughout his argument to the jury and in the presentation of the evidence, the prosecutor managed to present to the jury, on dozens of occasions, that not only had Kris Perritt been convicted of a felony, but that he was a convicted child molester. Although, identifying his crime with specificity may have been proper in that the judgment and sentence was admitted as an exhibit, we conclude that the repetitive use of the phrase child molester was improper and likely prejudicial to Perritt's right to a fair trial. We also are comfortable in concluding that the prosecutor's tactics in this regard were deliberate and repetitive, and not fleeting and inadvertent. [¶ 27] Through the testimony of witness Sherri Rollins, the prosecution sought to prove that Kris Perritt was in the household and that he had access to children. In the course of that testimony, the prosecution also revealed, over the objections of defense counsel, that Kris allegedly had spanked Rollins' child on her bare bottom. [8] We think it obvious that that testimony was irrelevant, more prejudicial than probative, and that it may have deprived Perritt of a fair trial, in and of itself. [¶ 28] Through the testimony of George Mills, a police officer for the Town of Evansville where the Perritts lived, the prosecution attempted to show that Kris was occasionally at the home where Perritt conducted her day care business. A significant part of his testimony only placed a vehicle owned by Kris at the residence. Much of Mills' testimony tended to place Kris in the light of engaging in unlawful conduct, although the only relevance of his testimony was to place Kris at the day care business during its hours of operation. Mills' testimony should only have been admitted to the extent it actually placed Kris at the residence on several occasions over the course of some 13 or 14 months. [¶ 29] Through the testimony of witness Tammy Dominguez, the prosecutor managed to portray Kris as an out of control, very angry man, who abused his own children and his dog. Defense counsel objected throughout her testimony, but all objections were overruled. The only relevance of Dominguez's testimony was to place Kris at Perritt's residence, especially at times when the day care was in operation.