Court Opinion

ID: 9545228
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:08:34.056678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:14:19.837878
License: Public Domain

BIRD, C. J.
I concur in the judgment, but I must respectfully demur to the language of the majority opinion which holds that there was no error in the trial court’s refusal to give a cautionary instruction as to the child complainants. The majority confuses competency of a witness with reliability and concludes that since a child is a competent witness, a cautionary instruction as to the reliability of a child’s testimony is not required.
Consider the historical development of this area of the law. Cautionary instructions in cases involving sexual offenses against children have been mandatory in California for many years. (See, e.g., People v. Benson (1856) 6 Cal. 221; People v. Putnam (1942) 20 Cal.2d 885 [129 P.2d 236]1; People v. Vaughan (1933) 131 Cal.App. 265 [21 P.2d 438]; People v. Sutton (1964) 224 Cal.App.2d 708 [37 Cal.Rptr. 23].) In these cases, our courts have consistently recognized that conviction of an innocent person was more likely because of the inflammatory nature of charges of sexual abuse of children. (See, e.g., People v. Hamilton (1873) *47246 Cal. 540, 544-545; People v. Trumbo (1943) 60 Cal.App.2d 681, 686-687 [141 P.2d 225].) “[T]o the mind of the average citizen or juror, the mere fact that a person has been accused of the commission of such an offense seems to constitute sufficient evidence to warrant a verdict of ‘guilty’....” (People v. Adams (1939) 14 Cal.2d 154, 167 [93 P.2d 146].)
Further, our courts have been concerned about the vulnerability of children to suggestion or manipulation by adults who desired to use prosecution in this area for ulterior motives. (See Adams, supra, 14 Cal.2d at pp. 166-167; People v. Garrett (1938) 27 Cal.App.2d 249, 252 [81 P.2d 241].) “ ‘There is no class of prosecutions attended with so much danger, or which afford so ample an opportunity for the free play of malice and private vengeance,’ . . .” (Adams, supra, 14 Cal.2d at p. 167, quoting from People v. Benson, supra, 6 Cal. at p. 223.) Additionally, concern has been expressed about the possibility that children may testify as to fantasy rather than reality. In Ballard v. Superior Court (1966) 64 Cal.2d 159 [49 Cal.Rptr. 302, 410 P.2d 838, 18 A.L.R.3d 1416], this court authorized the discretionary psychiatric examination of complainants to determine their credibility in cases involving sexual offenses. While this court in Ballard specifically refrained from requiring such an examination in every type of sexual offense case, it later explained that a Ballard-type examination “. . . would seem a minimum protection for a defendant charged with molesting a child, and only the rarest of cases would excuse counsel from obtaining one.” (People v. Lang (1974) 11 Cal.3d 134, 140 fn. 3 [113 Cal.Rptr. 9, 520 P.2d 393].)
In 1975, this court held that cautionary instructions were no longer mandatory in cases involving the rape of an adult woman. (People v. Rincon-Pineda, supra, 14 Cal.3d 864.)2 On appeal from the conviction of the accused, this court held that such an instruction “has outworn its usefulness and in modern circumstances is no longer to be given mandatory application.” (Id., at p. 877.) This court based its reasoning on a statistical analysis of rape prosecutions, from which it concluded that “it does not in fact appear that the accused perpetrators of sex offenses in general and rape in particular are subject to capricious conviction by inflamed tribunals of justice.” (Id., at p. 882.) While this conclusion was well-documented with respect to rape, it was unsupported by statistical or *473empirical analyses with respect to other types of sexual offenses. In particular, this court made no analysis of the statistics in cases involving alleged child molestation. This court held that “[n]othing we say in this opinion should be construed as precluding the development of new instructions designed to enhance juries’ consideration of particular types of evidence, such as the testimony of a child of tender years. ” (Id., at p. 883, fn. 6.) (Italics added.)
The majority opinion in our present case fails to follow through on the invitation in Rincon-Pineda to develop new instructions for cases involving the testimony of young children. Instead, the majority holds that the trial court did not err when it failed to give a cautionary instruction because such an instruction “improperly assumes that the testimony of all young children in sex cases is inherently suspect.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 471.) It is asserted that this is improper because “under present law, no distinction is made between the competence of young children and that of other witnesses.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 471.) However, this misses the point. The competency of a witness to testify has never heretofore been related to the need for a cautionary instruction and, in fact, has nothing to do with it. For example, an accomplice is a witness who is competent to testify, yet his testimony on behalf of the prosecution requires that a cautionary instruction be given.3 (People v. Miller (1960) 185 Cal.App.2d 59 [8 Cal.Rptr. 91], app. dism., cert. den., 365 U.S. 568 [5 L.Ed.2d 807, 81 S.Ct. 755].) An oral admission or confession of an accused is another “type of evidence” (Rincon-Pineda, supra, 14 Cal.3d at p. 883, fn. 6) which is competent to be admitted but which, the jury is instructed, “ought to be viewed with caution.” (CALJIC Nos. 2.70, 2.71.)
If, as the majority reasons, competency established reliability, then logically all cautionary instructions would be disapproved. If a witness were competent to testify, no cautionary instruction would be required. If a witness were not competent to testify, again no cautionary instruction would be required, since the witness should not be permitted to testify. Thus the majority has by its reasoning not only excluded cautionary instructions in cases involving sexual offenses with child complainants, *474but sub silentio has undermined all cautionary instructions. I cannot concur in such reasoning.4

Putnam, supra, was overruled by People v. Rincon-Pineda (1975) 14 Cal.3d 864, 882 [123 Cal.Rptr. 119, 538 P.2d 247], to the extent that Putnam indicated cautionary instructions were mandatory in all sex offense cases. As will be shown subsequently, Rincon-Pineda did not reach the question of the need for cautionary instructions in sexual offense cases with children complainants.

The specific instruction involved was former CALJIC No. 10.22, which read:
“A charge such as that made against the defendant in this case is one which is easily made and, once made, difficult to defend against, even if the accused is innocent.
“Therefore, the law requires that you examine the testimony of the female person named in the information with caution.”

CALJIC No. 3.18 provides that:
“It is the law that the testimony of an accomplice ought to be viewed with distrust. This does not mean that you' may arbitrarily disregard such testimony, but you should give to it the weight to which you find it to be entitled after examining it with care and caution and in the light of all the evidence in the case.”

The majority also errs in relying on Rincon-Pineda as support for the proposition that the trial court had “discretion” to refuse to give appellant’s proposed cautionary instruction. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 471.) The portion of Rincon-Pineda cited in support of this proposition deals only with a “trial court’s discretion to comment on the particular facts of the case . . . .” (Rincon-Pineda, supra, 14 Cal.3d at p. 885, fn. 9.) These principles are inapplicable here, since neither appellant nor the Attorney General raises any issue about the trial court’s power to comment upon the evidence.
At the very least, appellant may propose an instruction “relating particular facts [of his case] to any legal issue.” (People v. Sears (1970) 2 Cal.3d 180, 190 [84 Cal.Rptr. 711, 465 P.2d 847].) If this instruction is properly drawn, appellant is “entitled” to have the court give it (Rincon-Pineda, supra, 14 Cal.3d at p. 885); there is no “discretion” to deny it.