Court Opinion

ID: 9741842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:02:58.576561+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:26.678183
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
There is merit to appellant’s second appellate contention. I therefore respectfully dissent and urge the court that there is necessity for a new trial.
The evidence of guilt was presented by the alleged child victim. Her credibility was therefore crucial to the State’s case. She had been referred to a Mental Health Clinic by her parents and the police had met there with a person who had been awarded a master’s degree in social work, who had been employed for fifteen years counseling families and children. The person labelled herself a psychiatric social worker. She sought during several of the sessions to prepare the girl to withstand the test to which she would be put at the impending court trial. She is not a psychiatrist or psychologist.
At trial the social worker was permitted over a defense objection to answer the question of whether there was “anything unusual” about the fact that the child had testified in court in a factual manner, without hesitating or crying. The answer provided for the edification of the jury was that the girl knew that this would be the last time she would have to talk about it, and the girl just wanted to hurry up and get it over with. No court has ever gone so far as to sanction testimony of this sort. It is unfortunate that this exchange infect*483ed the trial, but we should take the matter in hand and declare an abuse of discretion. The ruling was contrary to our holding in Head v. State (1988), Ind., 519 N.E.2d 151, wherein we forbade permitting one witness to give an opinion that another witness was telling the truth. The jury probably received this social worker’s testimony as an opinion of one who knows more than the average mortal about human behavior, and as an opinion entitled to special weight. The opinion itself was that the observable behavior of the child while on the witness stand, testifying before the jury, was consistent with truth telling. The opinion went even further as it identified the girl’s feelings and what was going on in her mind as she was testifying. The message as a whole imparted to the jury that the conduct of the witness while testifying, signified testimony worthy of belief. This is surely the stuff of final jury summation, not trial evidence.