Court Opinion

ID: 9627619
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:48:46.656315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:47.790272
License: Public Domain

*631URBIGKIT, Justice,
dissenting from the rehearing denial.
Gale requests a rehearing based in particular on Zabel v. State, 765 P.2d 357 (Wyo.1988) which was rendered by this court after original appellate briefs were filed here. Although I would agree with appellant that Zabel was misplaced in majority opinion to justify rejection of the Ballard v. Superior Court of San Diego County, 64 Cal.2d 159, 49 Cal.Rptr. 302, 410 P.2d 838 (1966) and People v. Russel, 69 Cal.2d 187, 70 Cal.Rptr. 210, 443 P.2d 794, cert. denied 393 U.S. 864, 89 S.Ct. 145, 21 L.Ed.2d 132 (1968) rationales for psychiatric examination, the repeated mistake now made by the majority is incomprehen-sively more severe where Zabel prece-dentially addresses the Gale trial introduction of totally inappropriate testimony of a clinical social worker. The testimony of that witness, Geral Blanchard, as the windup performer for the prosecution is explicitly inadmissible under Zabel, although arguably not reversible under earlier Wyoming case law including Brown v. State, 736 P.2d 1110 (Wyo.1987), Urbigkit, J., dissenting.
The plain error found in Zabel should equally provide plain error now clearly authenticated from the trial of Richard Gale. Although appellant did not earlier include this contention, lacking the prescience to anticipate a decision such as Zabel, the wrongfulness of admitting the testimony of the social worker was not unnoticed by this writer with reflective time to review for dissent. See page 614 n. 15, Urbigkit, J., dissenting.
This court, to provide fairness and constitutional due process, should grant the rehearing in the interest of simple justice in behalf of an accused, who in my opinion is probably innocent, by recognition that Zabel in itself should mandate reconsideration for rehearing and reargument. The exhaustive and persuasive differentiation between testimony which is admissible as rape trauma syndrome evidence and non-admissible as proof of occurrence evidence decisively delineated in People v. Taylor, 75 N.Y.2d 277, 552 N.Y.S.2d 883, 552 N.E.2d 131 (1990) should buttress our decision as the Zabel standard of Wyoming law and now require a rehearing for Gale.