Court Opinion

ID: 9686119
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:30:28.686292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:15.175336
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(specially concurring).
I specially concur as I am compelled, by responsibility and law arising in this case, to address testimony of experts (psychologists) pertaining to “the dynamics behind incest.”
A young girl here denied, under oath, ever having had sexual intercourse with the defendant. She admitted that she had made certain statements to psychologists, law enforcement officers and social workers implicating her brother, the defendant, in incest. During trial, she testified that she made these implicating statements to stop the further questions and pressure upon her. At trial, she stated under oath that these statements were untrue.
These two psychologists testified as to the dynamics in families wherein incest takes place. This type of testimony is permissible; however, it cannot overreach so as to permit a qualified expert to suggest that the victim or the complainant was raped or engaged in forbidden sexual intercourse. Needless to say, the expert cannot testify on the ultimate question of guilt or innocence by stating “yes, the victim did engage in intercourse or she did not.” This is the function of the jury. If we jettison the principle that the jury decides the guilt or innocence of the defendant, and turn it over to experts, we forsake the lifeboat which has saved many innocent men. See State v. Logue, 372 N.W.2d 151, 157 (S.D.1985).
*197A case which reveals the general rule for admission in the dynamics of cases akin to the case before us is People v. Roscoe, 168 Cal.App.3d 1093, 215 Cal.Rptr. 45 (1985). It is as recent as June 4, 1985. There, a psychologist testified and gave his diagnosis of the complaining witness as a victim of child molestation. The California court held that it was error but affirmed the judgment upon the basis that it was not reasonably probable that exclusion of the evidence would have resulted in a different verdict.
What I am driving at is this: Incest victims or rape trauma victims cannot be singled out, specifically, in a given factual scenario, by professional experts as having had a crime perpetrated upon them. The dynamics involved in a like crime may be testified to by experts but for certain limited purposes. Such a purpose would be to support that a class of victims typically make poor witnesses and are reluctant to disclose sordid episodes. Another example would be to permit a professional expert to reveal to the jury that professional research reveals certain findings on the subject of a victim’s reaction to sexual assault, given to rehabilitate the complaining witness. People v. Bledsoe, 36 Cal.3d 236, 681 P.2d 291, 203 Cal.Rptr. 450 (1984).
I can specially concur in this case without condoning trials by experts based upon these rationales as gleaned from the record. (1) The psychologists never testified that the victim told them she was raped. (2) The psychologists never testified that in their opinion she was raped. (3) The psychologists’ most objectionable statements can reasonably be read not to go to the the substance of the crime. (4) The defendant failed to object on the basis that the psychologists were testifying to the substance of the crime. (5) The defendant objected to the psychologists testifying because he, the defendant, was not appointed an expert of his own. (6) The jury was instructed that such testimony was for impeachment purposes and was not substantive evidence.