Court Opinion

ID: 9728602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:12:26.909641+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:27.022720
License: Public Domain

Dooley, J.
In this appeal from a conviction for séxual assault, we hold that the trial court erred in ruling that the prosecution’s expert witness was unavailable under V.R.Cr.P. 15 and in allowing her deposition to be read to the jury. Since the error was not harmless, we reverse and remand for a new trial. Ac*40cordingly, we do not reach two other arguments raised by defendant.
In February 1988, defendant’s nineteen-year-old daughter complained that she had been repeatedly sexually abused by defendant. She alleged that the abuse began when she was thirteen and continued for more than three years, with the last incident occurring in September of 1985 when she was seventeen.
In June 1988, the State retained Dr. Anna Salter, a clinical psychologist specializing in child sexual abuse, to testify as an expert witness on the issues of delayed reporting, family dynamics of sexual abuse, patterns of sexual abuse and effects of sexual abuse. At the time she was retained, the State advised her that trial was scheduled for late September 1988. After the State disclosed that it had retained Doctor Salter, the defendant took her deposition on July 28, 1988.
By early August, the parties were notified that trial was set for September 28. On August 10, the State wrote to Dr. Salter advising her of the trial date. Thereafter, the State telephoned her on September 13 and September 23, leaving messages each time but failing to reach her personally. Finally, on September 2fi, the State established telephone contact with Dr. Salter and learned that she would be in Wisconsin on the date of trial and would not be returning until October 3, 1988.
On September 27, the day before trial, the State motioned the trial court to declare Dr. Salter “unavailable” and admit her deposition testimony. Once a witness is found unavailable, her deposition may be used as substantive evidence. V.R.E. 804(b)(1); V.R.Cr.P. 15(e). The court granted the State’s motion over defendant’s objection that the witness was not unavailable under the rules of evidence and procedure and the admission of the deposition denied his right to confront the witness. An edited version of the deposition was read to the jury.
Defendant argues that the trial court erroneously declared Dr. Salter “unavailable” thereby depriving him of his constitutional rights to confront and cross-examine a witness whose testimony was offered against him. A witness is unavailable if she is “absent from the hearing and the proponent of [her] statement has been unable to procure [her] attendance ... by process or other reasonable means.” V.R.E. 804(a)(5); V.R.Cr.P. *4115(g). The issue is whether the language of V.R.Cr.P. 15(g) and V.R.E. 804(a)(5), “other reasonable means,” requires the State to do more to secure the witness’s attendance than it did here.
It is important to emphasize that we are dealing -with a requirement imposed both by the applicable evidence rule and by the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The requirements are similar when a party seeks to admit the prior testimony of a witness in place of present testimony in a proceeding. See State v. Carroll, 147 Vt. 108, 111, 513 A.2d 1159, 1160 (1986) (hearsay rules and confrontation clause protect similar values). Thus, to meet confrontation requirements, the witness must be unavailable despite the State having made “a good-faith effort to obtain his presence at trial.” Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 725 (1968), quoted in Carroll, 147 Vt. at 112, 513 A.2d at 1161.
The length to which the State must go in producing a witness is a “question of reasonableness.” Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 74 (1980); see also United States v. Casamento, 887 F.2d 1141, 1169 (2d Cir. 1989). The State bears the burden of establishing the witness’s unavailability. Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. at 74-75.
The State’s only efforts to secure Dr. Salter’s presence were an initial letter followed by several phone calls. The State failed to reach her until it was too late to use alternative measures to assure her attendance. It argues that the phone calls satisfied the mandate that the State use “other reasonable means.”
 Because the State knew where its witness was, “rules governing unavailability . . . are not strictly applicable.” Carroll, 147 Vt. at 113, 513 A.2d at 1161-62. Furthermore, a witness who will be inconvenienced by appearing, Topping v. People, 793 P.2d 1168, 1171 (Colo. 1990), or proves evasive, United States v. Lynch, 499 F.2d 1011, 1024 (D.C. Cir. 1974), is not unavailable.
The State elected not to seek a continuance of a few days to accommodate Dr. Salter’s schedule or to invoke the Uniform Act to Secure the Attendance of Witnesses, 13 V.S.A. § 6646. The fact that the State limited its effort because it assumed that Dr. Salter would testify is not a valid excuse. The State’s effort *42was not sufficiently diligent to satisfy the unavailability requirement. The trial court erred in admitting the deposition.
 The State argues, however, that any error resulting from the admission of Dr. Salter’s deposition was harmless. Because of the constitutional violation, we must use the standard applicable to a constitutional error to determine whether the error was harmless. To avoid reversal, we must find that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 684 (1986). The standard applies in confrontation clause cases involving an expert witness. See Satterwhite v. Texas, 486 U.S. 249,258 (1988). Under this standard, an error cannot be harmless “[i]f there remains a possibility that the constitutionally-proscribed evidence impacted on the ultimate decisional process of the jury [and]... the beneficiary of the error cannot refute that possibility beyond qll reasonable doubt.” Brown v. Dugger, 831 F.2d 1547, 1554 (11th Cir. 1987); see also Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967) (adopting language of Fahy v. Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 86-87 (1963), that error is not harmless if “there is a reasonable possibility that the evidence complained of might have contributed to the conviction”). The State has the burden of demonstrating harmlessness. See Arizona v. Fulminante, — U.S. —, —, 111 S. Ct. 1246, 1257 (1991).
The error here was in admitting the deposition testimony of the expert witness. To determine whether the error is harmless, we must posit a trial without any evidence by Dr. Salter. In making this assessment, we must consider a number of factors, including “the importance of the witness’ testimony in the prosecution’s case, whether the testimony was cumulative, the presence or absence of evidence corroborating or contradicting the testimony of the witness on material points, the extent of cross-examination otherwise permitted, and, of course, the overall strength of the prosecution’s case.” Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 684.
All of the Van Arsdall factors show that the admission of the evidence here was not harmless. The State put on only one witness, the victim, in its case in chief. The victim testified that defendant had sexually assaulted her over a four-year period. Defendant took the stand and denied the charge and the specific events testified to by the victim. He was supported by each of *43the victim’s three brothers. They testified that they observed nothing unusual during the period covered by the victim’s testimony and that the house lacked privacy. The trial was a credibility contest between the defendant and the victim with the defendant having the advantages of the presumption of innocence, the State’s high burden of proof and the supporting testimony We cannot say that the State had a particularly strong case. See Clark v. O’Leary, 852 F.2d 999, 1005 (7th Cir. 1988) (evidence must be overwhelming for error to be harmless); Burns v. Clusen, 798 F.2d 931, 943 (7th Cir. 1986).
There was no other evidence corroborating or contradicting the expert’s testimony and the testimony was not cumulative. There was no real opportunity for cross-examination because there is no indication what the direct testimony would have been. Although all the discovery questions were asked by the defendant, they were merely explorations of what the witness might testify to rather than cross-examination based on what the witness would actually testify to.
The expert testimony was very important in this case. The expert testified not only that victims of sexual abuse often delay reporting the abuse, but also to some of the reasons why a victim fails to report the abuse. She testified that in many cases of parental sexual abuse, the child was not close to the mother, and stated “[a]ll of that seems to correlate with abuse occurring as though it simply makes it more possible for the abuse to occur.” In closing argument, the State argued that the victim fit the expert’s profile: she had not reported the abuse because she feared she would not be believed, and she was not close to her mother. Thus, the evidence rebutted one of the reasons to disbelieve the victim, the failure to report the abuse at or near the time it occurred, and established a partial profile from which the State could argue to the jury. See B. Morosco, The Prosecution and Defense of Sex Crimes § 9.08, at 9-49 (1991).
We first allowed profile evidence on delay in reporting allegations of sexual abuse in State v. Hicks, 148 Vt. 459, 462, 535 A.2d 776, 777 (1987), because “[t]he behavioral patterns of child victims of sexual abuse are generally not known to the average juror and are therefore a proper subject for expert testimony” This was an application of the earlier holding in State v. Catsam, 148 Vt. 366, 369, 534 A.2d 184, 187 (1987), that admitted *44this type of evidence because the “unique psychological effects of sexual assault on children place the average juror at a disadvantage in understanding the behavior of the victim.” These holdings were a break from past precedent that had viewed profile evidence with suspicion. Following the rationales for the Hicks and Catsam cases, we view the expert testimony as important to enable the jury to properly weigh the victim’s testimony.
Since we cannot say that the admission of the expert testimony was harmless, we must reverse and remand for a new trial.

Reversed and remanded.