Court Opinion

ID: 9906403
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-01 21:09:56.994955+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:24:19.959037
License: Public Domain

[J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.]
                     IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA
                                 WESTERN DISTRICT

    COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, :                   No. 26 WAP 2022

                       Appellee                      Appeal from the Order of the
                                                     Superior Court entered June 28,
                                                     2021 at No. 16 WDA 2020, affirming
                V.                                   the Judgment of Sentence of the
                                                     Court of Common Pleas of
                                                     Allegheny County entered
    RICKEY MCGINNIS,                                 December 4, 2019 at No. CP-02-
                                                     CR-0011014-2018.
                      Appellant
                                                   : ARGUED: April 19, 2023

                         OPINION IN SUPPORT OF REVERSAL

JUSTICE WECHT                                             DECIDED: DECEMBER 1, 2023

        Isupport lifting the categorical prohibition on expert testimony informing the jury

that certain forensic interviewing techniques have the potential to produce false memories

of abuse in young children. While some of this Court's past decisions have suggested

that such testimony "would infringe upon the jury's right to determine credibility,"' our

more recent precedent, in particular Commonwealth v. Walker,2 eschews this per se

exclusionary approach.    Iagree with Justice Mundy's opinion in support of affirmance

("OISA") that the rationale of those earlier decisions should be abandoned in favor of a

rule that allows trial courts to admit relevant expert testimony that is otherwise admissible

under our Rules of Evidence.

1
       Commonwealth v. Dunkle, 602 A.2d 830, 837 ( Pa. 1992).
2      92 A.3d 766 ( Pa. 2014).
       But my agreement with Justice Mundy's OISA ends there. Justice Mundy would

simply replace one misguided exclusionary rule with another by creating vague new

prerequisites to admissibility.   Justice Mundy would then retroactively impose this new

admissibility standard on Rickey McGinnis, who had no reason to know that he would

bear such aburden. Even if this proposed admissibility rule was justified and retroactive

application was not blatantly unfair, Justice Mundy's OISA also ignores ample evidence

suggesting the possibility of taint in this case.

       Many of our sister courts have addressed the issue of false memories in suspected

abuse victims.   In 1985, a pediatric nurse took the temperature of a four-year-old child

with a rectal thermometer and the child said, "this is what my teacher does to me at nap

time at school. "3 The nurse reported the comment to the local authorities, and all children

enrolled at the Wee Care Nursery School in Maplewood, New Jersey were questioned.

Social workers and therapists collected testimony from fifty-one children, aged three to

five. During the interviews, the children made horrifying accusations about their teacher,

Margaret Michaels. They said that Michaels forced them to lick peanut butter from her

genitals, that she penetrated their rectums and vaginas with knives, forks, and other

objects, that she forced them to eat cakes made from human excrement, and that she

made them play duck, duck, goose naked.

       Somehow, Michaels' colleagues at the school never witnessed her engage in

abusive behavior of any sort, let alone the disturbing acts that the children reported to

interviewers. Michaels ultimately was charged, tried, and convicted of over one hundred

sexual offenses and was sentenced to forty-seven years' imprisonment. After Michaels

spent five years in custody, the New Jersey Supreme Court overturned her convictions,

finding that "the interviews of the children were highly improper and utilized coercive and

3
       State v. Michaels, 642 A.2d 1372, 1374 ( N.J. 1994).

                             [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 2
unduly suggestive methods. "4      The New Jersey court's decision provides essential

background for understanding how an investigatory interview of a young child can be

coercive or suggestive, even unintentionally, and thus shape the child's responses. The

court explained that:

      a fairly wide consensus exists among experts, scholars, and practitioners
      concerning improper [forensic interviewing] techniques. They argue that
      among the factors that can undermine the neutrality of an interview and
      create undue suggestiveness are alack of investigatory independence, the
      pursuit by the interviewer of a preconceived notion of what has happened
      to the child, the use of leading questions, and a lack of control for outside
      influences on the child's statements, such as previous conversations with
      parents or peers.

      The use of incessantly repeated questions also adds a manipulative
      element to an interview. When a child is asked a question and gives an
      answer, and the question is immediately asked again, the child's normal
      reaction is to assume that the first answer was wrong or displeasing to the
      adult questioner. The insidious effects of repeated questioning are even
      more pronounced when the questions themselves over time suggest
      information to the children.

      The explicit vilification or criticism of the person charged with wrongdoing is
      another factor that can induce a child to believe abuse has occurred.
      Similarly, an interviewer's bias with respect to asuspected person's guilt or
      innocence can have a marked effect on the accuracy of a child's
      statements.      The transmission of suggestion can also be subtly
      communicated to children through more obvious factors such as the
      interviewer's tone of voice, mild threats, praise, cajoling, bribes and
      rewards, as well as resort to peer pressure. 5

      The court also noted that governmental and law enforcement agencies understand

that improper interviewing techniques risk corrupting the memories of young children.

That's why law enforcement and other interested groups like the Center for the

Prosecution of Child Abuse, the District Attorney's Association, and the American

Prosecutor's Research Institute " have adopted standards for conducting interviews

4
      Id. at 1380.
5     Id. at 1377 (citations omitted).

                            [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 3
designed to overcome the dangers stemming from the improper interrogation of young

children. "6 Those standards and guidelines generally indicate, among other things, that

interviewers should: ( 1) remain neutral, open, and objective; (2) avoid leading questions;

(3) never threaten achild or try to force areluctant child to talk; and (4) refrain from telling

a child what others, especially other children, have reported. Similarly, the New Jersey

Governor's Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect encourages interviewers to attempt

to elicit the child's feelings about the alleged perpetrator, but states that interviewers

should refrain from speaking negatively about the suspect. It also stresses that multiple

interviews with various interviewers should be avoided.

       A key takeaway from the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision in the Wee Care

Nursery School case is that "a sufficient consensus exists within the academic,

professional, and law enforcement communities, confirmed in varying degrees by courts,

to warrant the conclusion that the use of coercive or highly suggestive interrogation

techniques can create a significant risk that the interrogation itself will distort the child's

recollection of events, thereby undermining the reliability of the statements and

subsequent testimony concerning such events. "7           Yet, even as the potential perils

associated with interviewing young children about suspected sexual abuse have become

widely recognized,    experts who could       inform jurors about the limits of forensic

interviewing have been exiled from Pennsylvania courtrooms.           That's because of this

Court's decision in Commonwealth v. Dunkle,$ where we held that the Commonwealth

could not introduce so-called " profile testimony," in which an expert seeks to explain to

6      Id. at 1378.

      Id. at 1379.

8     602 A.2d 830 ( Pa. 1992).

                             [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 4
the jury that children who have been sexually abused might not recall certain details of

their abuse, might omit other details, or might delay reporting the abuse.

       The Dunkle Court believed that it " is well within the common knowledge of jurors"

that children who are sexually assaulted may delay reporting their abuse or may not

remember some details surrounding it. 9 The Court therefore reasoned that an " instruction

to the jury that they should consider the reasons why the child did not come forward,

including the age and circumstances of the child in the case, [is] sufficient to provide the

jury with enough guidance" to assess the child's credibility. 10 The Court also remarked

that, "[n]ot only is there no need for testimony about the reasons children may not come

forward, but permitting it would infringe upon the jury's right to determine credibility. "11

       Dunkle, in my view, is a regrettable decision.        The Court's insistence that the

average juror brings to the deliberation room a broad understanding of how children of

different ages and backgrounds might respond to sexual abuse was pure conjecture

dressed up as legal reasoning. Just as unsound was the Court's alternative rationale that

allowing expert testimony on victim responses to sexual violence would infringe upon the

jury's credibility-determining function. The idea that expert testimony relating to credibility

constitutes an invasion of the jury's province is a centuries-old notion that " is poorly

defined, lacks a legitimate doctrinal basis, and should be abolished in its entirety[.] "12

9      Id. at 838.

10     Id. at 837.

11     Id. (
           emphasis in original).

12      Ric Simmons, Conquering the Province of the Jury. Expert Testimony and the
Professionalization of Fact-Finding, 74 U. CiN. L.REV. 1013, 1015 (2006); id. at 1018-
1023 (discussing the history of the "province-of-the-jury" prohibition, which " grew naturally
out of the rule that expert testimony is admissible only if: ( 1) "the expert possessed a
specialized skill in aparticular subject" and (2) "the expert's opinion could assist the jury");
see Anne Bowen Poulin, Credibility: A Fair Subject for Expert Testimony?, 59 FAA. L.REV.
991, 993 (2007) ("The common-law prohibition against expert testimony on credibility
(continued... )

                             [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 5
Courts have never applied the maxim universally, which is actually a good thing given

that virtually all expert testimony can be framed as undermining the credibility of some

opposing witness.

       In his brief to this Court, McGinnis offers examples from cases that his counsel

personally has tried where expert testimony has been introduced in an effort to convince

the jury that the defendant is not credible.   In one of McGinnis' examples, a defendant

testified that he was out of the country when he was alleged to have murdered the victim. 13

To corroborate that alibi, the defendant introduced his stamped passport into evidence.

In response, the Commonwealth called an expert who testified that the passport stamps

were forged.    But how was that passport expert not infringing upon the jury's right to

determine credibility? In another case that McGinnis recounts, adefendant testified that

his wife grabbed his firearm during a confrontation and shot herself with it, so the

Commonwealth called a crime scene expert to testify that the physical evidence was

inconsistent with the defendant's account. 14      No one would suggest that either the

passport expert or the crime-scene expert should have been kept from the jury, yet the

experts in these examples arguably " invade the jury's province" every bit as much as

testimony about false memories would.

       Although Dunkle was wrongly decided, the legislative fix to Dunkle hardly improved

matters. In 2012, the General Assembly enacted 42 Pa.C.S. § 5920, which provides that

expert testimony is admissible in a criminal case if it "will assist the trier of fact in

should not continue to restrict the admissibility of evidence bearing on credibility. Instead,
courts should set aside the maxim's broadly stated prohibition and should eliminate the
overprotection of the jury's ` special province."); see also Commonwealth v. Alicia, 92 A.3d
753, 765 ( Pa. 2014) (Saylor, J., dissenting) (suggesting that this Court's pre- Walker
decisions " adhere[d] reflexively to nineteenth-century conventions and axioms").

13     Brief for McGinnis at 45-46.

14     Id. at 46-47.

                             [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 6
understanding the dynamics of sexual violence or domestic violence, victim responses to

sexual violence or domestic violence and the impact of sexual violence or domestic

violence on victims during and after being assaulted. "15 This statute effectively abrogates

Dunkle, at least for expert testimony that falls within the scope of Section 5920.

       The problem is that the scope of Section 5920 is at best unclear.         Some lower

courts, including the Superior Court below in an unpublished decision, have held that

Section 5920 does not apply to expert testimony about suggestibility or false memories

in children, since the statute concerns only "victim responses to sexual violence" and "the

impact of sexual violence or domestic violence on victims. "16      Others, including some

judges on the panel below, would hold that expert testimony about false memories and

suggestibility may be admissible under Section 5920. 17

       Though Justice Mudy's OISA purports to answer it anyway, the question of Section

5920's scope is not properly before this Court. 18 McGinnis does not include a statutory

interpretation argument in his brief, nor did he in his petition for allowance of appeal.

Instead, he argues that Dr. Bruce Chambers' false memories testimony was admissible

15
       42 Pa.C.S. § 5920.

16     Id.; see Commonwealth v. McGinnis,         A.3d , 2021 WL 2652690, at *7 ( Pa.
Super. 2021) ( holding that McGinnis' " proffer did not relate to 'the dynamics of sexual
violence, victim responses to sexual violence[,] [or] the impact of sexual violence on
victims during and after being assaulted[,]' and thus, does not fall within the purview of
Section 5920").

17      McGinnis, 2021 WL 2652690, at *9 ( Bowes, J., concurring) (" Iam unwilling to
foreclose the possibility that an expert may proffer testimony about interview techniques
or therapy that would implicate victims' responses to sexual violence or its impact within
the meaning of § 5920, without opining about the credibility of the witnesses."); id. at * 11
(Colins, J., dissenting) (suggesting that Dr. Chambers' testimony was admissible under
Section 5920).

18     Justice Mundy's OISA at 16 ("As Section 5920 is limited in scope to evidence
concerning violence and victim responses thereto, it does not encompass the type of
expert testimony proposed by [McGinnis] in this matter. ").

                             [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 7
 in light of Walker, which in turn signals this Court's retreat from the exclusionary approach

espoused in earlier cases like Dunkle. 19

        In Walker, we lifted the per se bar on expert testimony regarding eyewitness

misidentification. We did this, as other state courts did around the same time, in the face

of mounting evidence that judge-made rules shielding jurors from entire bodies of science

were leading to wrongful convictions. 20 The Walker Court correctly abandoned the legal

fiction that lay jurors already possess encyclopedic knowledge about complex subjects

like human behavior and perception. 21      However, the Court did not fight the similarly

flawed premise that expert testimony is inadmissible if it invades the province of the jury

in making credibility determinations.

       Instead, the Walker Court distinguished our unfortunate precedent and concluded

that expert testimony on eyewitness misidentification in particular is not one of the

forbidden, province-invading kinds of expert testimony.          The Court reasoned that

eyewitness misidentification testimony does not speak to whether a particular witness is

credible; rather, it teaches the jurors to decide for themselves whether the witness is

19     See Brief for McGinnis at 41 (arguing that "
                                                  Walker answers the question
presented").

20     See Walker, 92 A.3d at 775 ("[ I]n the past 15 years, numerous states, including
Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Utah, which had previously utilized the absolute
prohibition approach, have reversed themselves[.]"); id. at 780 ("[T]here is no doubt that
wrongful conviction due to erroneous eyewitness identification continues to be apressing
concern for the legal system and society."); Brandon L. Garrett, Judging Innocence, 108
COLUM. L. REV. 55, 60 (2008) (   noting that 79% of the first 200 prisoners exonerated by
DNA testing were convicted based upon mistaken eyewitness testimony); see also Alicia,
92 A.3d at 766 (  Saylor, J., dissenting) (arguing that the " blanket exclusion of relevant
evidence based upon unanalyzed assumptions about juror capabilities, even as these
assumptions are challenged by demonstrations of wrongful convictions and developing
behavioral science, is no longer satisfactory").

21     Walker, 92 A.3d at 789 ("[W]e are no longer willing to maintain a preclusive rule
based on equating common knowledge among jurors with adeveloped understanding of
the factors which potentially impact eyewitness testimony. ").

                             [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 8
credible. 22 This illusory distinction was problematic from its inception. Take for instance

 Walker's companion case, Commonwealth v. Alicia, 23 in which we held incongruously

with Walkerthat allowing expert testimony on the phenomenon of false confessions would

"constitut[e] an impermissible invasion of the jury's role as the exclusive arbiter of

credibility. 1124

         The only firm conclusion that can be drawn from our precedent in this area is that

this Court has needlessly complicated already complex criminal matters by creating (and

then inconsistently applying) admissibility rules that arose from dusty " nineteenth-century

conventions and axioms[.]" 25 Beginning in the late 1980s, this Court authored aseries of

decisions prohibiting juries from hearing relevant expert testimony on certain subjects. 26

Neither of the two justifications given for these holdings is persuasive. First, the idea that

"jurors' life experience and common sense will necessarily guide them to the truth" 27 is

22      Id. at 784 (" Expert testimony on relevant psychological factors which may impact
eyewitness identification ... does not directly speak to whether a particular witness was
untrustworthy, or even unreliable, as the expert is not rendering an opinion on whether a
specific witness is accurate in his or her identification. Rather, such testimony teaches—
it provides jurors with education by which they assess for themselves the witness's
credibility. ").

23      92 A.3d 753 ( Pa. 2014).

24      Id. at 764.

25      Alicia, 92 A.3d at 765 (Saylor, J., dissenting).

26      See Dunkle, 602 A.2d at 837 (" Not only is there no need for testimony about the
reasons children may not come forward, but permitting it would infringe upon the jury's
right to determine credibility.") (emphasis in original); Commonwealth v. Gallagher, 547
A.2d 355, 359 ( Pa. 1988) ( holding that expert testimony regarding " rape trauma
syndrome" is inadmissible because it would encroach upon the jury's prerogative);
Walker, 92 A.3d at 780 ("While in Pennsylvania the admission of expert testimony is
generally amatter left to the discretion of the trial court, our decisional law from the mid-
1990s has repeatedly barred, without exception, the admission of expert testimony
regarding eyewitness identification. ").

27      Alicia, 92 A.3d at 765 (Saylor, J., dissenting).

                              [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 9
obviously farfetched when complex issues of psychology, memory, and perception are at

 issue. As amatter of fact, the reason why litigants seek to introduce expert testimony on

topics like false confessions and false memories is precisely because the concepts are

highly counterintuitive to lay jurors. Second, as Ihave explained already, the supposed

rule that experts cannot give general opinion testimony that undercuts the credibility of a

witness would, if we really believed it, bar virtually all expert testimony in criminal cases.

       While Walker rejected some of Dunkle's unsound reasoning, the decision did not

go far enough.     Post-Wa/ker, these matters now proceed piecemeal, with this Court

applying in each individual case what we have termed a "flexible framework" to determine

whether we think jurors ought to hear about certain kinds of expertise. 28 These decisions

are essentially arbitrary. Expert testimony about false confessions is inadmissible, expert

testimony about eyewitness misidentification is not inadmissible, expert testimony about

victim responses to sexual violence may or may not be inadmissible, and Isuppose we

will address other kinds of experts another day. 29 Indeed, Justice Mundy foreshadows

that today's appeal is but "the latest expert-testimony dispute in the Walker line." 30

28     Walker, 92 A.3d at 791 ("A more flexible framework strikes a crucial balance in
determining the admission of expert testimony, as well as between protecting a
defendant's rights while enabling the Commonwealth to meet its responsibility of
protection of the public. ").

29      Id. at 791 ("[ I]n light of the magnitude of scientific understanding of eyewitness
identification and marked developments in case law during the last 30 years, it is no longer
advisable to ban the use of expert testimony to aid ajury in understanding eyewitness
identification."); Alicia, 92 A.3d at 764 ( holding that expert testimony regarding the
phenomenon of false confessions " constitutes an impermissible invasion of the jury's role
as the exclusive arbiter of credibility"); Commonwealth v. Jones, 240 A.3d 881, 896-97
(Pa. 2020) ("While some testimony on [victim responses to sexual assaults] may be
prohibited for impermissibly invading the jury's province of determining credibility, we
disagree that all testimony will. Whether or not this prohibition has been violated must
instead be assessed on a case by case basis. ").
30
       Justice Mundy's OISA at 15.

                            [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 10
       This ad- hoc approach is not only unprincipled, but also unnecessary, since our

rules of evidence already allow trial courts to exclude expert testimony for many reasons,

including when it is irrelevant, when it risks confusing or misleading the jury, when it is not

based on generally accepted science, or when it concerns matters already understood by

average laypersons. 39 The risk of haphazardness with Walker's piecemeal approach can

be seen here, where Justice Mundy's OISA would end the per se prohibition on expert

testimony regarding false memories, only to then replace it with an entirely new

admissibility standard under which:

       expert testimony concerning implanted or distorted memories of sexual
       abuse must, as a predicate to admissibility, be linked in some way to the
       actual evidence in the case concerning possible taint, such as the interviews
       and counseling the alleged child victim underwent that may have led to such
       distortions, or athird party's animosity toward the defendant that may have
       resulted in fabricated memories. It is insufficient to rely solely on the
       circumstance that the child was subject to interviews and counseling or that
       athird party harbored hostility toward the defendant. Something more must
       be present to suggest those occurrences could have had a distorting
       effect. 32

       Justice Mundy suggests that this admissibility test originates from Walker, but it

plainly does not.    Walker simply held that a defendant must explain on-the- record

"precisely how the expert's testimony is relevant to the eyewitness identifications under

consideration and how it will assist the jury in its evaluation." 33 Walker also said that this

proffer must "establish the presence of factors" that the expert will testify about which are

31     Pa.R.E. 402 (" Evidence that is not relevant is not admissible."); Pa.R.E. 403 ("The
court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is outweighed by a danger of
... unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time,
or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence."); Pa.R.E. 702(c) ( providing that an expert
witness' methodology must be "generally accepted in the relevant field"); Pa.R.E. 702(a)
(stating that an expert may offer opinion testimony if his or her "scientific, technical, or
other specialized knowledge is beyond that possessed by the average layperson").

32     Justice Mundy's OISA at 20.

33     Walker, 92 A.3d at 792 (emphasis added).

                            [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 11
 "beyond the common understanding of laypersons." 34 Both of these requirements come

directly from our Rules of Evidence, which state that testimony must be relevant and that

any expert must have specialized knowledge " beyond that possessed by the average

 layperson[. ]1135   In other words, Walker does not exclude any testimony that Rules 401

and 702 would not also keep out. 36

         Dr. Chambers' expert testimony would be admissible under the Walker approach.

McGinnis could, upon remand, make aproffer to the trial court detailing specifically which

aspects of forensic interviewing and/or cognitive therapy Dr. Chambers would address in

his testimony. As courts have recognized, some factors that can undermine the neutrality

of aforensic interview include: "a lack of investigatory independence, the pursuit by the

interviewer of apreconceived notion of what has happened to the child, the use of leading

questions, and a lack of control for outside influences on the child's statements, such as

previous conversations with parents or peers." 37 "[ I]ncessantly repeated questions," the

"explicit vilification or criticism of the person charged with wrongdoing," and the use of

"multiple interviews with various interviewers" also risk distorting the memories of

suspected abuse victims. 38      Surely these (and other) factors are beyond the common

34      Id.

35      Pa.R.E. 402 (" Evidence that is not relevant is not admissible."); Pa.R.E. 702
(stating that an expert may offer opinion testimony if, among other things, his or her
"scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge is beyond that possessed by the
average layperson").

36     Walker, 92 A.3d at 792 ("We now allow for the possibility that such expert testimony
on the limited issue of eyewitness identification as raised in this appeal may be
admissible, at the discretion of the trial court, and assuming the expert is qualified, the
proffered testimony relevant, and will assist the trier of fact.") (
                                                                   emphasis added).
37      Michaels, 642 A.2d at 1377.
38      Id. at 1377-78.

                              [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 12
understanding of laypersons and testimony about them therefore would comply with Rule

702 so long as the expert's methodology is generally accepted in the relevant field.

       As for relevance, there is no question that expert testimony regarding specific

factors that can undermine the reliability of aforensic interview would have been relevant

at McGinnis' trial.   Evidence is relevant so long as it has "any tendency to make a fact

more or less probable than it would be without the evidence" and that fact " is of

consequence in determining the action. "39 Here, J.M. was roughly five years old when

the alleged abuse occurred and he underwent his first interview, exactly the age in which

experts agree children may be suggestible. 40        J.M. sat for multiple interviews and

underwent extensive therapy with numerous providers in between those interviews,

increasing the potential for such distortions to occur. 41 During this extended period, which

lasted years, outside influences on J.M.'s statements were left entirely uncontrolled. 42 It

would not be a leap for jurors to suspect, for example, that J.M. might have had

conversations about McGinnis with Mother, who ended her relationship with McGinnis on

39
       Pa.R.E. 401.

40     Stephen J. Ceci & Richard D. Friedman, The Suggestibility of Children: Scientific
Research and Legal Implications, 86 CORNELL L.REV. 33, 34 (2000) ("Within the
mainstream scientific community, scholars agree that young children are more
susceptible than older individuals to leading questions and pressures to conform to the
expectations and desires of others."), Michaels, 642 A.2d at 1378 ("The debilitating impact
of improper interrogation has even more pronounced effect among young children. ").

41     See Michaels, 642 A.2d at 1378 (stating that " multiple interviews with various
interviewers should be avoided"); id. at 1377 (discussing "[t]he insidious effects of
repeated questioning").

42      Id. at 1377 ( noting that "a lack of control for outside influences on the child's
statements, such as previous conversations with parents or peers" can " undermine the
neutrality of an interview and create undue suggestiveness").

                            [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 13
bad terms. 43 The Commonwealth's case against McGinnis also rested entirely on J.M.'s

recollection of the events, thus making the reliability of his memory particularly relevant.

        Furthermore, and contrary to Justice Mundy's depiction, J.M.'s recollection of the

events did evolve throughout the interview process. According to Mother, J.M. initially

said that McGinnis " put a hole in" JM.'s " butt" and he stated that this happens "[a]II day

long." 44    Mother then took J.M. to the hospital, where medical professionals found no

physical evidence of sexual abuse. J.M. underwent his first forensic interview at the Child

Advocacy Center (" Center") in February 2013. Records from the Center reveal that J.M.

"did not demonstrate an understanding of the rules [of the interview]," did not know his

age or date of birth, and could provide little to no information about his activities at school

or his likes and dislikes. 45 Regardless, J.M. did not allege sexual abuse of any kind in

this first interview.   He stated that McGinnis " cuss[es] too much," but he denied that

McGinnis " bothers him in any other way" or " is mean in any other way." 46 Justice Mundy

43     Justice Mundy suggests that J.M. did not have contact with McGinnis because
"J.M. gained an understanding of what his father had done to him and thus transitioned
from wanting to see [McGinnis] to not wanting to see him." Justice Mundy's OISA at 21
n.16. In fact, though, Mother prevented McGinnis from seeing J.M. beginning when the
two broke up, many months before the allegation of abuse even arose. Notes of
Testimony, 9/9/2019, at 254.

44     See McGinnis' Brief in Support of Omnibus Pre-trial Motion, 4/22/2019, at 5 ( R.R.
at 29). At the time J.M. made this allegation, McGinnis and Mother were not on good
terms, to say the least. Four months earlier, Mother had found anaked photo of awoman
on McGinnis' cell phone and responded by ending their relationship and prohibiting
McGinnis from having any contact with his son.

45     Id.

46      Id. J.M. went on to recount to the interviewer a ( presumably make-believe) tale of
McGinnis getting a " knife from the kitchen" and pushing it " on top of [J.M.'s] clothes." Id.
J.M. stated that McGinnis " push[ed] hard and hard all day." Id. He said that this took
place on multiple occasions, sometimes in his room, sometimes in McGinnis' room, and
sometimes in the living room. According to J.M., Mother witnessed these incidents and
stated: "You are gonna cut him in half." Id.

                             [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 14
suggests that McGinnis was not charged after J.M.'s initial forensic interview because " it

was determined J.M. was unable to provide testimony due to his young age." 47                   But

testimony of what? There was no allegation of sexual abuse at all in the first interview.

        Following the first interview, J.M. underwent four hours of trauma therapy every

week for approximately seven months before Mother contacted the Center and again

claimed that J.M. was disclosing McGinnis' abuse.              J.M. then underwent a second

interview.   This time he alleged that McGinnis " hurt his butt with his penis" on one

occasion. 48 But J.M. also gave conflicting or nonresponsive answers to questions about

where in McGinnis' house the abuse occurred, whether anyone else was home, whether

it was hot or cold outside at the time, and whether he said anything to McGinnis in

response to the abuse . 49 The interviewer's notes for this session also indicate that J.M.

"did not demonstrate an ability to differentiate between real and not real" and that he "was

not resistant to suggestibility." 50 Unsurprisingly, the police declined to file charges against

McGinnis at that time. 51

       J.M. continued in trauma therapy and received counseling from numerous

providers for another half decade before Mother contacted the Center and re- reported the

47     Justice Mundy's OISA at 2.

48     McGinnis' Brief in Support of Omnibus Pre-trial Motion, 4/22/2019, at 5 ( R.R. at
29).

49       Id. ("[J.M.] reported that it was ' cold' outside and then stated that ' It was warm."');
id. at 6 ("[J.M.] denied that he said anything to Father and then stated, ' Itold him to stop. "').
50     Id. at 5.

51      At trial, the lead Allegheny County Police detective, Timothy Stetzer, testified that,
while the second interview yielded something closer to an allegation of abuse, J.M.
ultimately was not able to distinguish "between what's real and not real[.]" Notes of
Testimony, 9/4/2019, at 181 ("We did have a little more disclosure than we had initially,
but it was not a disclosure[.]" According to Stetzer, JM "did a little bit better recounting
... but [ he] still had a little bit [of] trouble with colors. The differences between what's
real and not real, that was a big one that we ran into. ").

                              [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 15
sexual abuse allegation again in June 2018. 52        The Center then conducted a third

interview in which J.M. stated that McGinnis had raped him.       It was only after this third

interview, more than half adecade after the initial allegation, that McGinnis was charged.

Given J.M.'s age, lack of resistance to suggestibility, proximity to Mother, inconsistent

statements, and long history of interviewing and treatment, Dr. Chambers' expert

testimony was both highly relevant and " linked in some way to the actual evidence in the

case[.]" 53 Had the jury been aware that some children around J.M.'s age who participate

in forensic interviews can develop false memories of abuse, that obviously would "make

afact" (i.e., the allegation of abuse) " more or less probable than it would be without the

evidence[.]" 54 This is not even aclose call.

       Put simply, Justice Mundy's approach is not a mere relevance inquiry. Nor does

it have any basis in Walker, Rule 401, or Rule 702. Under Justice Mundy's test, McGinnis

would have been required to identify some "aspect of [J.M.'s] therapy or any other factual

predicate suggesting J.M.'s cognitive processes were affected in a manner tending to

plant, distort, or otherwise interfere with his memories." 55 Justice Mundy also suggests—

in seemingly contradictory back-to-back sentences—that "athird party's animosity toward

the defendant that may have resulted in fabricated memories" would suffice to meet this

test, but the fact "that athird party harbored hostility toward the defendant" would not. 56

52    J.M. received counseling from Glade Run between February 2013 and August
2013; from WJS Psychological Services between August 2013 and January 2015; from
Mercy Behavioral Health between January 2015 and May 2016; and from Barber
Behavioral Health Institute between May 2016 and August 2018.

53    Justice Mundy's OISA at 20.

54     Pa. R. E. 401.

55    Justice Mundy's OISA at 21.

56 /d. at 20.

                           [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 16
The apparent idea is that only " proofs suggesting [that athird party's] animosity may have

had an influence on the alleged victim's memories" will justify admissibility. 57   Setting

aside the question of how one could ever make such a showing, Justice Mundy's

clarification proves that her proposed admissibility standard is not a mere relevance

inquiry, as we called for in Walker.   Relevance does not require " proofs" of anything.

Evidence is relevant so long as it has any tendency at all to make afact of consequence

more or less probable than it would be without the evidence. 58

       While a clear majority of this Court believes that expert testimony regarding false

memories in suspected abuse victims should no longer be per se inadmissible, under

Justice Mundy's approach, the admissibility of such evidence would remain highly

restricted and subject to vague judge-made standards found nowhere in our Rules of

Evidence. Defendants seeking to undermine the credibility of a sexual abuse allegation

with expert testimony would have to meet this heightened standard, while the prosecution

could seek to admit expert testimony bolstering the allegation under Section 5920, which

contains none of Justice Mundy's made upadmissibility restrictions. In doing so, Justice

57     Justice Mundy's OISA at 21 n.17.

58      Pa.R.E. 401.      Justice Mundy also seemingly misunderstands conditional
relevance, which is implicated under Rule 104(b) when the relevance of some offered
evidence depends upon the existence of some other additional fact or facts not yet
established. In those circumstances, atrial court "may admit the proposed evidence on
the condition that the proof be introduced later" during the trial. Pa.R.E. 104. Rest
assured, my difference with Justice Mundy's OISA has nothing to do with conditional
relevance. My objection is that Justice Mundy would morph what should be a mere
relevance inquiry into a vague and unrecognizable standard. Under Justice Mundy's
rubric, expert testimony explaining that outside influences such as parents and peers can
undermine the reliability of aforensic interview is somehow irrelevant in acase where the
victim resided with aparent who strongly disliked the defendant during key years in which
the victim's memories of abuse evolved. See Justice Mundy's OISA at 20 (" Something
more must be present to suggest those occurrences could have had adistorting effect. ").
That conclusion is plainly incorrect. It is bad law. Nothing in Rule 104(b) makes it any
less so.

                           [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 17
Mundy's approach would subject the prosecution and the defense to entirely different

admissibility rules.

       While Isupport overruling Dunk/e-era decisions that unwisely rendered expert

testimony on entire categories of science per se inadmissible, Justice Mundy's preferred

path would achieve very little. Justice Mundy's OISA would simply create new, misguided

admissibility rules to replace our old, misguided admissibility rules. The only real solution

is for this Court to fully abandon the province-of-the-jury prohibition once and for all and

return control over the presentation of expert testimony back to trial judges. If it is honestly

the case that a particular expert's proposed testimony would be irrelevant or would

concern matters known by average laypersons, then trial courts can exclude the

testimony under our ordinary Rules of Evidence.            Decisions that do not tackle the

province-of-the-jury prohibition head on merely offer the mirage of progress.

       Justices Donohue and Dougherty join this opinion in support of reversal.

                            [J-21-2023] [OISR: Mundy, J.] - 18