Court Opinion

ID: 9532951
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:26:35.365509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:52.643504
License: Public Domain

KAPELKE, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with Part II of the majority opinion holding that the trial court did not err in admitting the statement the victim made to a detective. Also, I agree with the majority’s conclusion in Part IA that the court should *26not have permitted the social services intake worker to testify that she felt the victim was sincere in recounting the stray of the assault. Because, in my view, defendant has not demonstrated that admission of the intake worker’s statement was plain error, however, I would affirm the conviction.
As noted in the majority opinion, defendant did not interpose an objection to the prosecutor’s question as to whether the intake worker felt the victim was sincere in giving her account. Accordingly, a plain error analysis is applicable.
Under that test, reversal is mandated only if, after reviewing the entire record, we can say with fair assurance that the error so undermined the fundamental fairness of the trial itself as to cast serious doubt on the reliability of the judgment of conviction. See Wilson v. People, 743 P.2d 415 (Colo.1987).
Here, unlike in People v. Oliver, 745 P.2d 222 (Colo.1987) and People v. Koon, 713 P.2d 410 (Colo.App.1985), the witness did not give a detailed account of the statement of the victim. Defense counsel objected that such testimony would have been cumulative of testimony given by a police detective. The court agreed and sustained the objection. As a result of that ruling, any danger that the witness was being permitted to invade the truth-finding province of the jury was substantially diminished.
In People v. Gaffney, 769 P.2d 1081 (Colo.1989), the supreme court concluded that an expert witness had improperly been permitted to testify that the sexual assault victim’s history was “very believable.” Nevertheless, the court determined that admission of the expert’s statement was harmless under all the circumstances of that case.
Among the factor's the Gaffney court considered significant in arriving at its conclusion of harmless error were the existence of corroborating physical evidence of assault and the fact that both the victim’s mother and a police officer had testified as to the statements made by the victim describing the assault.
Here, in her trial testimony, a physician testifying as an expert on detecting sexual abuse of children concluded that there had been “probable abuse with a clear, consistent history of molestation, consistent with vaginal and rectal penetration.” Cf. People v. Koon, supra (rejecting harmless error contention in part because of absence of corroborating physical evidence).
Further, as in Gaffney, a police detective testified concerning the victim’s account of the sexual assault. In addition, the physician testifying as an expert on child sexual abuse detection detailed the victim’s statements to her regarding the assault.
In addition, I note that the prosecutor, in closing argument, made no reference to the intake worker’s, comment as to the sincerity of the victim.
Under all these circumstances, I conclude that defendant has not shown plain error in the admission of the intake worker’s comment as to the victim’s sincerity. In my view, admission of the statement did not so undermine the fairness of the trial itself as to cast doubt on the reliability of the judgment of conviction.
Finally, I would also reject defendant’s additional contention that certain comments made by the prosecutor in closing argument constituted prosecutorial misconduct amounting to plain error.
I would therefore affirm the conviction.