Court Opinion

ID: 9762742
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:30:25.157756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:37.091816
License: Public Domain

STUMBO, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I must dissent. As we stated in Mack v. Commonwealth, Ky., 860 S.W.2d 275, 277 (1993), “due process and fundamental fairness may, depending on the circumstances, entitle the defendant to have the alleged victim examined by an independent expert, if not a defense expert.” The case herein involved multiple counts of criminal sexual behavior committed against a single victim. During a hearing to determine whether the victim was competent to testify, or alternatively, whether a further indepen*580dent evaluation was needed, the young woman testified to a number of things that cast grave doubt on her competency and ability to separate fantasy from reality.
While she did testify that she knew the difference between the truth and a lie, she further stated that she heard voices that would tell her to do “wrong things” to hurt people; that she saw faces on walls, sometimes on a daily basis; and that she didn’t always know that the visions she saw were not real. She described the faces as being unlike anyone she knew, having animal bodies, pointed ears, thick eyebrows and sharp teeth. She also testified that she thought some of the voices were demons, telling her to hurt or kill herself or other people. She stated that she could not tell whether the voices were male or female because there were several voices together. She stated that she saw hallucinations every day, sometimes seeing her deceased grandmother or father, both of whom spoke to her. She testified that while she had experienced no visions on the day of her testimony, she had seen them on the preceding night.
A licensed clinical social worker, who had been providing the victim with therapy, testified that in her opinion the victim suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, with a provisional diagnosis of “Dissociative Disorder.” The latter condition, she stated, could adversely affect the victim’s memory and her perception of facts. The therapist also testified that the victim had never revealed to her that she saw hallucinations every day or that she saw visions of her father and grandmother who spoke to her.
It is clear that the victim suffered from severe mental and emotional problems. Both her own testimony and that of her therapist indicate the need for an evaluation performed by a mental health expert who is fully advised of all of the young woman’s symptoms and is independent. The seriousness of the charges and the long time period over which the events were alleged to have occurred — seven years, from 1988 to 1995-render it fundamentally unfair for Appellant to have to respond to these charges without an independent evaluation of the victim’s mental condition.