Court Opinion

ID: 9548780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:08:41.504825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:25.213605
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
*332Oscar D. Howlett, Portland, for the petitioner.
Before McAllister, Chief Justice, and Perry, Goodwin, Denecke and Schwab, Justices.
SCHWAB, J. (Pro Tempore).
The defendant, by petition for rehearing, asks us to reconsider our ruling that the trial court properly denied his motion for an order requiring the 27-year old woman who accused the defendant of rape and sodomy to submit to a pretrial psychiatric examination for the purpose of examining into her “character.” In our opinion we adopted and set forth the reasoning of the California District Court of Appeals in Ballard v. Superior Court, 44 Cal Rptr 291.
The defendant’s petition points out that, in an opinion published at about the same time our opinion was handed down, the California Supreme Court in Ballard v. Superior Court of San Diego County, 49 Cal Rptr 302, held that under certain circumstances a trial court had the discretionary power to direct a psychiatric examination of the complaining witness in a sex case.
The reasoning of the California Supreme Court has *333persuasive qualities① but in weighing it against that of the District Court of Appeals, we think the latter is less fraught with dangerous potential.
The use of psychiatric testimony in the manner urged by the defendant would create a class of cases in which opinion evidence would, in fact, determine the credibility of witnesses. Unless the function of a jury is to find the truth, its role is devoid of substance. Often the jury can meet this obligation only by determining the credibility of witnesses. The jury system, with all its imperfections, has served society well. It has not been demonstrated that the art of psychiatry has yet developed into a science so exact as to warrant such a basic intrusion into the jury process.
The petition for rehearing is denied.

 Even if we were to follow the reasoning of the California Supreme Court, the defendant in the case at bar would not benefit. The opinion of the California Supreme Court says: “Such necessity would generally arise only if little or no corroboration supported the charge * * 49 Cal Rptr at 313. Here there were eyewitnesses, including a nonparticipant.