Court Opinion

ID: 9558773
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:16:36.691144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:35.044497
License: Public Domain

BROUSSARD,J
—I dissent.
The majority hold that under Evidence Code section 10241 the psychotherapist-patient privilege does not protect against disclosure of communications if: (a) disclosure is necessary to protect the threatened *609victim, or (b) disclosure is not itself necessary, but has “triggered” the therapist’s decision to warn the victim. I agree with the first part of this holding, which is what section 1024 says. But that is all it says. Extending section 1024 to permit disclosure of communications when that is not and never was necessary to protect the victim amends the statute to reach a result contrary to the intent of the drafters and the enacting Legislature. The majority take pains to reject the extreme interpretations advanced by defendant and amicus curiae—that section 1024 does not apply at trial when the victim is dead, or that it applies only in proceedings undertaken for the benefit of the patient—but never consider that the statute should be applied according to its words, to exclude a communication from the privilege only if its disclosure is or was “necessary to prevent the threatened danger.” (§ 1024.)
In the present case, the trial court ruled that defendant’s therapists could reveal not only what they told Linda Smith (the murder victim) when they warned her of danger, but also statements made by defendant during therapy which they had not disclosed to Smith. The record here shows that the therapists believed defendant was dangerous, and warned Smith that she was in danger. But they did not reveal anything defendant had told them during therapy, and the prosecution never asserted that such disclosure was necessary to protect Smith. Consequently, under the language and purpose of section 1024, defendant’s communications to his therapists retained their privileged character and should not have been admitted into evidence. I conclude that the trial court’s ruling was in error, that the testimony as to nondisclosed statements was inadmissible, and that, in view of the slim evidence supporting premeditation, the erroneous admission of this evidence was prejudicial.
I
Prior to trial, the prosecutor brought a motion to determine competency of witnesses, in which he asked the court to determine whether the testimony of the therapists would be admissible under the so-called dangerous patient exception (§ 1024) to the psychotherapist-patient privilege. Defense counsel appeared and asserted the privilege on behalf of his client.
The court examined the therapists in camera. Dr. Judith Hamilton testified that defendant told her that when he had a headache or had been drinking alcohol, he was afraid that he would lose control and hurt Linda Smith. Based on those statements, defendant’s use of drugs and alcohol, and his past record of violence, Hamilton decided to warn Smith. Hamilton telephoned Smith and told her that she was in “a dangerous situation.” Smith replied, “I know that. I stay with him because I’m lonely and because *610he’d kill me if I left.” Hamilton and Smith had several further conversations, mostly concerning defendant’s hospitalization. Hamilton did not, however, disclose to Smith any communication defendant had made during therapy.
Dr. Bellenden Hutcheson testified that defendant said he had auditory hallucinations which commanded him to kill. He added that he stays away from knives and guns because he might hurt someone. Hutcheson did not plan to warn Smith himself, but relied on Hamilton to do so. Smith, however, called Hutcheson to complain that the medications Hutcheson had prescribed for defendant’s headaches were causing defendant to be drowsy; in that conversation Smith told Hutcheson that she was in a difficult and dangerous situation, but was unable to leave. Hutcheson said, “You have to find out how to get out of there,” and recommended that Smith get an appointment with Dr. Boutleete, a therapist who had counseled her previously. Hutcheson, like Hamilton, did not disclose to Smith any confidential communication between defendant and himself.
At the conclusion of the in camera proceeding, the court ruled that the following items were not protected by the psychotherapist-patient privilege: “a. All conversations [of the therapists] with Linda Smith; b. The substance of all conversations between Linda Smith and Drs. Hutcheson and Hamilton as they relate to the issue of warnings of threats; c. Impressions and diagnoses which prompted such warnings; d. Statements made by the defendant himself which led to impressions, diagnosis and conclusions by Drs. Hutcheson and Hamilton to warn the victim.”2 Defense counsel raised the specific point I urge in this dissent, namely, that the statute only provided for disclosure “when the disclosure is necessary to prevent the threatened danger.” The court, however, replied, “I know the statute could be read to only require the warning, but I don’t think that’s what the statute means.” At trial the therapists testified in accord with their in camera testimony. Defendant objected to portions of the testimony, but not on the ground of privilege, which both sides assumed was settled by the pretrial ruling.3
I have no problem with the admissibility of items (a) and (b) in the trial court order, the conversations between victim Linda Smith and the *611therapists. The admissibility of such conversations was decided in People v. Clark (1990) 50 Cal.3d 583, 619 [268 Cal.Rptr. 399, 789 P.2d 127]. But I submit that the court erred in holding items (c) and (d) admissible. Given the balance of evidence in this case, the error was prejudicial.4
II
My analysis of the meaning of section 1024 begins with the statutory language. “ ‘The court turns first to the words themselves for the answer.’ ” (Brown v. Kelly Broadcasting Co. (1989) 48 Cal.3d 711, 724 [257 Cal.Rptr. 708, 771 P.2d 406]; Delaney v. Superior Court (1990) 50 Cal.3d 785, 798 [268 Cal.Rptr. 753, 789 P.2d 934].) “If the language is clear and unambiguous there is no need for construction . . . .” (Lungren v. Deukmejian (1988) 45 Cal.3d 727, 735 [248 Cal.Rptr. 115, 755 P.2d 299].)
All confidential communications between a patient and his therapist are privileged (§ 1014) unless they lose that character by virtue of some specific exception in the Evidence Code. The only relevant exception here is section 1024, which states: “There is no privilege under this article if the psychotherapist has reasonable cause to believe that the patient is in such mental or emotional condition as to be dangerous to himself or to the person or property of another and that disclosure of the communication is necessary to prevent the threatened danger.” Under this language, each communication between the therapist and the patient5 retains its privileged status until two conditions are met. First, the therapist must have reasonable cause to believe the patient is in such mental or emotional condition as to be dangerous to himself or to others. Second, the therapist must have reasonable cause to believe that disclosure of the communication is necessary to prevent the threatened danger.
The second condition is at issue here. There is no ambiguity concerning its requirements. A communication is privileged unless its disclosure is *612necessary to prevent threatened danger. A communication does not lose its privileged status merely because the therapist has reasonable cause to believe that the patient is dangerous, or because the communication may contribute to the therapist’s conclusion that he or she should take some action to prevent danger—so long as that action does not itself require disclosure of the communication in question.
The record here revealed that when Dr. Hamilton called Linda Smith and told her she was in a dangerous situation, she replied, “I know.” Smith later called Dr. Hutcheson and volunteered that she knew she was in danger. Under these circumstances, neither therapist had reasonable cause to be believe that she or he must divulge further confidential communications to Smith, and neither did so.6 Thus under the plain meaning of the statute, none of those communications lost their privileged status.
Ill
The foregoing interpretation of section 1024 is supported by the history of the psychotherapist-patient privilege and the cases applying that privilege.
The Law Revision Commission comment to section 1014, which creates the psychotherapist-patient privilege, explained that “[a] broad privilege should apply to both psychiatrists and certified psychologists. Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy are dependent upon the fullest revelation of the most intimate and embarrassing details of the patient’s life. Research on mental or emotional problems requires similar disclosure. Unless a patient or research subject is assured that such information can and will be held in utmost confidence, he will be reluctant to make the full disclosure upon which diagnosis and treatment or complete and accurate research depends, [fl] The Law Revision Commission has received several reliable reports that persons in need of treatment sometimes refuse such treatment from psychiatrists because the confidentiality of their communications cannot be assured under existing law. Many of these persons are seriously disturbed and constitute threats to other persons in the community.” (Italics added.) The Law Revision Commission went on to explain that the “difference in the scope of the two privileges [the psychotherapist-patient privilege as compared to the *613physician-patient privilege, which does not apply in criminal proceedings] is based on the fact that the Law Revision Commission has been advised that proper psychotherapy often is denied a patient solely because he will not talk freely to a psychotherapist for fear that the latter may be compelled in a criminal proceeding to reveal what he has been told.” (Italics added.)
I have emphasized certain parts of the Law Revision Commission comments to make it clear that the privilege was intended to apply—indeed was written specifically—to protect the patient who is a “threat to other persons in the community” and fears disclosure in a criminal proceeding. Thus the provisions defining the privilege and the exceptions to that privilege should be interpreted to encourage potentially dangerous persons to seek psychotherapy by providing them with protection against the disclosure of their confidences in subsequent criminal proceedings.7
The Law Revision Commission also explained the reason for the dangerous patient exception of section 1024: “it is essential that appropriate action be taken if the psychotherapist becomes convinced during the course of treatment that the patient is a menace to himself or others and the patient refuses to permit the psychotherapist to make the disclosure necessary to prevent the threatened danger.” In other words, the primary purpose of section 1024 is to enable the therapist to disclose communications when the therapist thinks disclosure is necessary, not to compel the therapist to make disclosures he or she considers unnecessary. To require disclosure beyond the necessities of the case would be inconsistent with the legislative purpose.
In light of the purposes served by the psychotherapist-patient privilege, the cases have consistently held that any doubt should be resolved in favor of the privilege. “[T]he statutory psychotherapist-patient privilege ‘is to be liberally construed in favor of the patient.’ ” (In re Lifschutz (1970) 2 Cal.3d 415, 437 [85 Cal.Rptr. 829, 467 P.2d 557, 44 A.L.R.3d 1]; Roberts v. Superior Court (1973) 9 Cal.3d 330, 337 [107 Cal.Rptr. 309, 508 P.2d 309].) “[E]ven when the balance tips in favor of disclosure, constitutional concerns require a strict circumscription of the scope of the disclosure.” (Cutter v. Brownbridge (1986) 183 Cal.App.3d 836, 843 [228 Cal.Rptr. 545].) Thus the courts have an “obligation to construe narrowly any exception to the *614psychotherapist-patient privilege: we must apply such an exception only when the patient’s case falls squarely within its ambit.” (People v. Stritzinger (1983) 34 Cal.3d 505, 513 [194 Cal.Rptr. 431, 668 P.2d 738].)
Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California, supra, 17 Cal.3d 425, the leading case discussing a therapist’s duties with respect to a dangerous patient, held that the heirs of a murder victim could bring a wrongful death action against the therapists who failed to warn the victim. In reaching this result, we described the Evidence Code provisions as “balancing the countervailing concerns” by establishing a “broad rule of privilege to protect confidential communications between patient and psychotherapist” in section 1014 and a “specific and limited exception” in section 1024. (17 Cal.3d at pp. 440-441.) We then said: “We realize that the open and confidential character of psychotherapeutic dialogue encourages patients to express threats of violence, few of which are ever executed. Certainly a therapist should not be encouraged routinely to reveal such threats; such disclosures could seriously disrupt the patient’s relationship with his therapist and with the persons threatened. To the contrary, the therapist’s obligation to his patient requires that he not disclose a confidence unless such disclosure is necessary to avert danger to others, and even then that he do so discreetly, and in a fashion that would preserve the privacy of his patient to the fullest extent compatible with the prevention of the threatened danger.” (P. 441.)8 How can a therapist fulfill this obligation under the majority’s view? They hold that even if the therapist carefully tells the victim only what she needs to know for her own safety—that she is in danger—by that act the therapist has destroyed the client’s privilege as to all communications which led to the conclusion that the client was dangerous, and that a warning was necessary.
Subsequent to Tarasoff, the Legislature added subdivision (s) to Welfare and Institutions Code section 5328, which relates to records of involuntarily committed mental patients. It provides that “[w]hen the patient, in the opinion of his or her psychotherapist, presents a serious danger of violence to a reasonably foreseeable victim or victims, then any of the information or records specified in this section may be released to that person or persons and to law enforcement agencies as the psychotherapist determines is needed for the protections of that person or persons.” Section 5328 confirms the legislative intent to limit disclosure to that which is needed for protection of the victim.
*615Our recent decision in People v. Clark, supra, 50 Cal.3d 583, declared that “[a] psychotherapist has a professional duty to maintain the confidential character of communications made to him by his patient during the course of the relationship, but when it is necessary to disclose confidential information to avert danger to others the therapist must do so. [Citing Tarasoff.] . . . [Section 1014] exists to prevent the unnecessary disclosure of statements made in confidence in the course of a privileged communication with a therapist and thereby to facilitate treatment. ... If the statements have been revealed to third persons in a communication that is not itself privileged, however, they are no longer confidential.”(Pp. 619-620.) Again we find language carefully limiting section 1024 to statements which it is necessary to disclose; nothing in Clark would support disclosure of statements which the therapist did not reveal and did not need to reveal to the victim.
The Court of Appeal decisions cited by the majority do not detract from the foregoing analysis, but turn on other issues. In People v. Gomez (1982) 134 Cal.App.3d 874 [185 Cal.Rptr. 155], the defendant argued at trial that section 1024 was inapplicable since the victim was dead and disclosure would no longer serve the purpose of preventing danger. The Court of Appeal held that if disclosure was necessary when the communications were disclosed in an effort to prevent danger, the communications were not privileged. I agree; under section 1024, once circumstances require disclosure to prevent danger, the communications which have been disclosed lose their privileged character, and do not later regain that status. But nothing in Gomez removes the privilege from communications which were not disclosed and did not need to be disclosed to prevent danger.
Mavroudis v. Superior Court (1980) 102 Cal.App.3d 594 [162 Cal.Rptr. 724], concerned discovery in a civil suit alleging failure to warn. The court held that if the preliminary facts required by section 1024 were present at the time of the injury, the claim of privilege fails, even though by time of trial it was too late to prevent the danger. The court then established a procedure for in camera review of the psychiatric records to determine what should have been disclosed, and thus is subject to discovery. Nothing in that case suggests that the plaintiff was entitled to discover confidential communications whose disclosure was never necessary to prevent danger.
In sum, a communication does not lose its privilege because it influenced a therapist to take some action other than disclosure of that communication to prevent danger. Under the language of section 1024, the Law Revision Commission comments to that section, and the subsequent cases and enactments, a communication loses the protection of the psychotherapist patient privilege only when disclosure of that communication is itself necessary to *616prevent danger. Since none of defendant’s communications during therapy were disclosed to victim Smith, and the prosecution offered no showing that such disclosure was ever necessary to prevent danger, the trial court erred in ruling that these communications were not protected by the psychotherapist-patient privilege.
IV
Without the testimony concerning defendant’s statements during therapy, the evidence that defendant premeditated the killing is extremely scanty. That evidence can be summarized briefly: (1) Smith was probably killed with a hammer; (2) defendant sold some of the victim’s belongings after she died; (3) the victim once wrongly suspected defendant of stealing her car; and (4) the therapists told the victim that she was in danger.9
None of this proves very much. The prosecutor argued that defendant might have taken a hammer from the tool box in anticipation of a quarrel, or, inconsistently, that defendant went to the toolbox to get it after he became angry—but both hypotheses are merely conjecture on the prosecutor’s part. The use of a hammer, a common household tool, instead of a gun or other weapon designed to kill, suggests absence of premeditation. The proof that defendant hid the hammer after the killing adds nothing.
The evidence of motive, based on defendant’s thefts and Smith’s suspicion of those thefts, is weak, and proof of motive alone will not sustain a finding of premeditation. (People v. Anderson (1968) 70 Cal.2d 15, 27 [73 Cal.Rptr. 550, 447 P.2d 942].) The fact that defendant sought therapy shows not that he was planning to kill, but that he feared he would kill impulsively and sought help to prevent that from happening. The therapists’ warning is fully consistent with the fact that defendant was a disturbed, violent person with poor impulse control, i.e., the kind of person likely to commit an unpremeditated killing.
The evidence of defendant’s undisclosed communications to the therapists added greatly to the weight of the prosecution case. As the prosecutor said, “the things that Mr. Wharton says himself to his psychiatrist [are] much more important” than the other evidence. The prosecutor explained the importance of this evidence to the jury: “Now, how many homicide cases do you have where you have a statement a defendant makes two weeks ahead of time when you’re trying to prove premeditation and *617deliberation? How many times do you think you have a case where someone tells his shrink, two weeks ahead of time, they’re thinking of hurting the person they end up murdering? Premeditation and deliberation requires you to have think [s/c] about what you’re doing. Well, at least from the 27th he was thinking about it. . . . [T]his is strong, strong evidence of premeditation and deliberation. He’s thinking about it, knows he has a problem along these lines, he’s thinking about it two weeks ahead of time.”
The evidence of defendant’s communications, fully exploited by the prosecutor, greatly strengthened what otherwise would have been a weak case for premeditation—one based largely on conjecture. Without such evidence I believe it reasonably probable that the jury would not have found the defendant committed a premeditated murder. Applying the test of prejudice of People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836 [299 P.2d 243], I would reverse the judgment finding defendant guilty of first degree murder, and remand the case for a new trial.

 All statutory citations in this opinion are to the Evidence Code.

The trial court’s order specifically authorized the district attorney to interview the therapists on the listed matters. The ruling, however, necessarily implied that such matters were not privileged, since the district attorney may not ask the therapists to disclose privileged communications. The court’s ruling thus signified that the therapists’ testimony on such matters would be admissible. The conduct of the parties at trial shows that they understood the ruling as one defining the scope of the psychotherapist-patient privilege in this case for all purposes, including admissibility of evidence.

I agree with the majority that this pretrial ruling is reviewable under People v. Morris, ante, 152, at page 190 [279 Cal.Rptr. 720, 807 P.2d 949], even though the judge who rendered the ruling was not the judge who ultimately tried the case.

The majority approach this issue in a circuitous fashion. They first assert that defendant waived the psychotherapist-patient privilege by putting his mental state in issue. They then recognize defendant’s claim that this waiver was coerced by the court’s pretrial ruling on the scope of the dangerous patient exception. The majority reply that this ruling was correct, so the waiver was not coerced by an erroneous ruling. They then discuss the merits of that ruling at length. Thus the majority’s conclusion ultimately rests not on the waiver, which may have been the product of the pretrial ruling, but on the correctness of that ruling itself.
All this unnecessarily complicates the matter. It would be simpler—and amount to the same thing—to say that the issue of the pretrial ruling on privilege is properly before us on appeal because subsequent acts of defense counsel in response to that ruling did not waive the issue.

 The term “communication” as used in section 1024 and throughout the psychotherapist-patient privilege refers to the communication between the therapist and the patient (see § 1014), not to the communication, if any, between the therapist and the victim.

 Defendant contends that the therapists did not disclose any confidential communication to Smith. The majority reply that a communication, as defined in section 1012, includes “information obtained by an examination of the patient” and “a diagnosis.” Arguably the therapist’s conclusion that defendant was a danger to Smith is a “communication” within the meaning of that section. The majority acknowledge, however, that the fact that one communication is nonprivileged by operation of section 1024 does not deprive other confidential communications of the privilege. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 554.)

 The majority reject concerns that their interpretation will discourage potentially dangerous persons from seeking mental health counseling on the ground that in Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California (1976) 17 Cal. 3d 425, 440, footnote 12 [131 Cal.Rptr. 14, 551 P.2d 334, 83 A.L.R.3d 1166], we said such predictions are speculative. And so they are—we have no data. But it is clear that they were a matter of concern to the Law Revision Commission and the Legislature. If the Legislature drafted section 1024 narrowly because of its concern for the risk that a broad exemption would deter persons from seeking therapy, we have no warrant to brand the Legislature’s concern “speculative” and adopt an interpretation contrary to its intent.

 The majority maintain that the quoted language from Tarasoff describes only the common law duty of the therapist to his or her patient and to the potential victim. I believe it was also intended to describe the balance struck by the Legislature between privilege and disclosure, a balance that the Tarasojf court believed was completely consistent with the common law rule.

 The Attorney General also argues in support of premeditation that the evidence showed that defendant knew he was hitting, and perhaps killing, the victim. But intent to kill and knowledge that one is killing are fully consistent with unpremeditated murder. A lack of intent or knowledge would suggest absence of malice, reducing the crime to manslaughter.