Court Opinion

ID: 9641875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:42:02.202679+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:40.461804
License: Public Domain

Darrell Hickman, Justice, concurring. For centuries a deep prejudice has existed against women who bring rape charges. The embarrassment and humiliation which a victim must undergo to prosecute her assailant is well known in legal circles. Victims learn immediately the price they must pay for prosecuting. Even the enactment of protective legislation for rape victims and the more sensitive and sensible investigation of rape cases have not entirely stamped out prejudice. See Ark. Code Ann. § 16-42-101 (1987). The classic defense to a rape case is still to discredit the victim. While a woman no longer has to be dead or produce a severely beaten body to get justice against her assailant, we have not entirely buried our prejudice that somehow the rape victim is partially to blame for the crime. The same prejudice exists in cases involving child abuse, although with a different twist. In child abuse cases, we do not want to believe it happens. That prejudice, in my mind, led to our decision in Midgett v. State, 292 Ark. 278, 729 S.W.2d 410 (1987), where a majority of this court would not accept strong evidence that a father beat his child to death and his conviction for first degree murder should have stood. It was decided, surely, he did not intend to kill his own child, while the evidence said he did. That same view can lead us to deny the use of relevant and competent evidence that ought to be admissible in a child abuse case. I write to point out that the testimony of the social worker in this case was admissible. The appellant uses our decision in Russell v. State, 289 Ark. 533, 712 S.W.2d 916 (1986), to argue that it was not admissible. (Actually, the Russell opinion was only a two man opinion; two justices dissented, two justices concurred, and the chief justice did not participate. Russell, therefore, is hardly precedent.) The erroneous statement in the Russell case is: “Lay jurors were fully competent to determine whether the history given by the victim was consistent with sexual abuse.” The weight of the authority is to the contrary. Jurors are ordinarily not familiar with child abuse, and expert testimony, such as that offered in this case, should be admissible to aid the jurors in their decision. Any juror, who has had personal experience with child abuse, would probably be excused from the panel. In State v. Myers, 359 N.W.2d 604 (Minn. 1984), Dr. Clare Bell, a clinical psychologist, testified at length about incest and general characteristics that exist in sexually abused children. The court made these observations: The nature ... of the sexual abuse of children places lay jurors at a disadvantage. Incest is prohibited in all or almost all cultures, and the common experience of the jury may represent a less than adequate foundation for assessing the credibility of a young child who complains of sexual abuse .... In the case of a sexually abused child, consent is irrelevant and jurors are often faced with determining the veracity of a young child who tells of a course of conduct carried on over an ill-defined time frame and who appears an uncertain or ambivalent accuser and who may even recant. Background data providing a relevant insight into the puzzling aspects of the child’s conduct and demeanor which the jury could not otherwise bring to its evaluation of her credibility is helpful and appropriate in the cases of sexual abuse of children, . . . and particularly of the children as young as this complainant. In U.S. v. St. Pierre, 812 F.2d 417 (8th Cir. 1987), the district judge allowed a clinical psychologist, Dr. Curran, to testify about certain traits and characteristics of sexually abused children, as compared to those exhibited by the victim. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the testimony commenting: These cases present difficult problems for the jury. The testimony of the accused and the victim is generally in direct conflict. The crime is secretive with extreme pressures against revelation, especially when committed in a family setting. Citing the case of State v. Myers, supra, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals went on to say: That court [Minn.] recognized that the type of testimony presented by Dr. Curran could be very helpful because jurors are at a disadvantage when dealing with sexual abuse. In State v. Middleton, 294 Or. 427, 657 P.2d 1215 (1983), the court dealt with expert testimony of a juvenile counselor and a social worker about child abuse. The court said: [I] n this instance we are concerned with a child who states she has been the victim of sexual abuse by a member of her family. The experts testified that in this situation the young victim often feels guilty about testifying against someone she loves and wonders if she is doing the right thing in so testifying. It would be useful to the jury to know that not just this victim but many child victims are ambivalent about the forcefulness with which they want to pursue the complaint, and it is not uncommon for them to deny the act ever happened. Explaining this superficially bizarre behavior by identifying its emotional antecedents could help the jury better assess the witness’ credibility. The court upheld the admissibility of the testimony. The Supreme Court of Nevada has come to the same conclusion. Smith v. State, 100 Nev. 570, 688 P.2d 326 (1984). See also State v. Petrich, 101 Wash. 2d 566, 683 P.2d 173 (1984). We are witnessing a remarkable increase in the number of child abuse cases. Dr. Roland C. Summit, Head Physician, Community Consultation Service, Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, wrote about the child sexual abuse syndrome in Summit, The Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome, 7 Child Abuse and Neglect, pp. 177-192 (1983): Child sexual abuse has exploded into public awareness during a span of less than five years. . . . The summary message in this explosion of information is that sexual abuse of children is much more common and more damaging to individuals and to society than has been acknowledged by clinical or social scientists. The explosion of interest creates new hazards for the child victim of sexual abuse since it increases the likelihood of discovery but fails to protect the victim against the secondary assaults of an inconsistent intervention system. The identified child victim encounters an adult world which gives grudging acknowledgement to an abstract concept of child sexual abuse but which challenges and represses the child who presents a specific complaint of victimization. Adult beliefs are dominated by an entrenched and self-protective mythology that passes for common sense. ‘Everybody knows’ that adults must protect themselves from groundless accusations of seductive or vindictive young people. An image persists of nubile adolescents playing dangerous games out of their burgeoning sexual fascination. What everybody does not know, and would not want to know, is that the vast majority of investigated accusations prove valid and that most of the young people were less than eight years old at the time of initiation. If a respectable, reasonable adult is accused of perverse, assaultive behavior by an uncertain, emotionally distraught child, most adults who hear the accusation will fault the child. Dr. Summit recites the generally accepted categories of the syndrome, which are secrecy; helplessness; entrapment and accommodation; delayed, conflicted and unconvincing disclosure; and retraction. He bears down on what happens to the child and what the child must face: The prevailing reality for the most frequent victim of child sexual abuse is not a street or schoolground experience and not some mutual vulnerability to oedipal temptations, but as unprecedented, relentlessly progressive intrusion of sexual acts by an overpowering adult in a one-sided victim-perpetrator relationship. The fact that the perpetrator is often in a trusted and apparently loving position only increases the imbalance of power and underscores the helplessness of the child. Children often describe their first experiences as waking up to find their father (or stepfather, or mother’s live-in companion) exploring their bodies with hands or mouth. Less frequently, they may find a penis filling their mouth or probing between their legs. Society allows the child one acceptable set of reactions to such an experience. Like the adult victim of rape, the child victim is expected to forcibly resist, to cry for help and to attempt to escape the intrusion. By that standard, almost every child fails. The normal reaction is to ‘play possum,’ that is to feign sleep, to shift position and to pull up the covers. Small creatures simply do not call on force to deal with overwhelming threat. When there is no place to run, they have no choice but to try to hide. Children generally learn to cope silently with terrors in the night. Bed covers take on magical powers against monsters, but they are no match for human intruders. It is sad to hear children attacked by attorneys and discredited by juries because they claimed to be molested yet admitted they made no protest nor outcry. The point to emphasize here is not so much the miscarriage of justice as the continuing assault on the child. If the child’s testimony is rejected in court, there is more likely to be a rejection by the mother and other relatives who may be eager to restore trust in the accused adult and to brand the child as malicious. Adult prejudice is contagious. Without a consistent therapeutic affirmation of innocence, the victim tends to become filled with self-condemnation and self-hate for somehow inviting and allowing the sexual assaults. As an advocate for the child, both in therapy and in court, it is necessary to recognize that no matter what the circumstances, the child had no choice but to submit quietly and to keep the secret. Dr. Summit points out that “[wjhatever a child says about sexual abuse, she is likely to reverse it.” He discusses what has changed: Sexual abuse of children is not a new phenomenon although its true dimensions are emerging only through recent awareness and study. Children have been subject to molestation, exploitation and intimidation by supposed caretakers throughout history. . . What is changing most in our present generation is the sensitivity to recognize exploitation, to identify blatant inequities in parenting among otherwise apparently adequate families, and to discover that such inequities have a substantial impact on the character development, personality integration and emotional well-being of the more deprived and mistreated children. In the 1980’s we can no longer afford to be incredulous of basic realities of child abuse. Finally, he discussed what has been learned from experience: The sexual abuse accommodation syndrome is derived from the collective experience of dozens of sexual abuse treatment centers in dealing with thousands of reports or complaints of adult victimization of young children. In the vast majority of these cases the identified adult claimed total innocence or admitted only to trivial, well-meaning attempts at ‘sex education,’ wrestling, or affectionate closeness. After a time in treatment the men almost invariably conceded that the child had told the truth. Of the children who were found to have misrepresented their complaints, most had sought to understate the frequency or duration of sexual experiences, even when reports were made in anger and in apparent retaliation against violence or humiliation. Very few children, no more than two or three per thousand, have ever been found to exaggerate or to invent claims of sexual molestation... It has become a maxim among child sexual abuse intervention counselors and investigators that children never fabricate the kinds of explicit sexual manipulations they divulge in complaints or interrogations. . . . There is no doubt that we are heading in the wrong direction on this subject. Undoubtedly, a majority of other courts would uphold the admissibility of the social worker’s testimony. Roe, Expert Testimony in Child Abuse Cases, 40 U. Miami L. Rev., 97-113 (1985); Note, Expert Testimony in Child Sexual Abuse Prosecutions: A Spectrum of Uses, 68 B.U.L. Rev. 155-1902 (1988). The reason for a trial is to determine the truth. The rules of evidence are the guidelines that allow us to get there. They should not be used as obstacles. I would also affirm the judgment.