Frenzel v. State

849 P.2d 741, 1993 Wyo. LEXIS 64, 1993 WL 84446
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 26, 1993
Docket92-96
StatusPublished
Cited by49 cases

This text of 849 P.2d 741 (Frenzel v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wyoming Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Frenzel v. State, 849 P.2d 741, 1993 Wyo. LEXIS 64, 1993 WL 84446 (Wyo. 1993).

Opinions

CARDINE, Justice.

Appellant challenges his conviction of seven separate counts of first degree sexual assault (W.S. 6-2-302). He argues that the State’s expert improperly testified concerning the victim’s credibility and concerning “Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome.” Additionally, appellant alleges that several of the State’s other witnesses improperly testified to the victim’s rendition of the assaults and on the defendant’s prior bad acts.

We affirm.
Appellant presents the issues as follows:
I. Did the trial court err when it allowed the psychologist to vouch for the veracity of the State’s complaining witness?
II. Did the trial court err in allowing prosecution witnesses to recite the allegations of the accuser, even though those recitations were not for the purpose of refuting an allegation of recent fabrication?
III. The trial court erred in allowing the psychologist to testify that the complaining witness suffered from a “syndrome” which could only be the result of the offenses alleged, when that syndrome is not generally recognized in the field of psychology.
IV. The trial court erred in allowing evidence of other “bad acts” which were not admissible under Rule 404(b), W.R.E.
In addition, the State raises a fifth issue:
V. Must the victim’s compensation surcharges be modified?

BACKGROUND

For a complete understanding of the contentious testimony in this case, it is necessary to briefly describe the parties involved and their relationship to one another. It is easiest to keep track of the parties by their connection to the appellant.

[744]*744Appellant has two siblings, a sister, age 47 (T-l) and a brother, age 44 (B-l). Both of these siblings live in California and evidently have done so for most of their adult lives. The man to whom T-l had been married for twenty-five years is now married to the appellant’s second daughter (D-2), the prosecutrix. T-l’s husband mistakenly believed that he was divorced from T-1 when he married D-2.

Appellant has fathered children with four separate women. He and his first wife (W-l) produced one child, a daughter (D-l). Appellant and his second wife (W-2) produced D-2 (the prosecutrix) and a third daughter (D-3). Appellant became separated from W-2 and began a non-marital relationship with another woman (W-3) which produced three sons (S — 1, S-2, S-3). Appellant then became estranged from W-3 and has since begun a new relationship with another woman (W-4) and produced another son (S-4).

In the Fall of 1989, appellant, W-4, D-2, D-3, S — 1, S-2 and S-3 all moved to Cody, Wyoming. At the time, appellant was 44, W-4 was 18, D-2 was 17, D-3 was 15, S-l was 10, S-2 was 8 and S-3 was 5. They moved into a trailer home six miles outside of town. The testimony is disputed as to when the children started school, but' at some point all the children did attend school in Cody. Appellant worked periodically cleaning carpets and driving a truck. The prosecutrix (D-2), went to school occasionally and worked at a local fast food restaurant.. It was during this approximate five-month stay in Cody when D-2 claims the sexual abuse occurred.

During the family’s five-month stay in .Cody, appellant allegedly committed seven different acts of first degree sexual assault on his daughter, D-2. Four separate incidents account for each of the seven assaults. Each assault involved forced penetration either orally or vaginally with the appellant’s penis or another object.

Within a few days of the last assaults, appellant moved his family back to California. Once in California, appellant and W-4 moved to Los Angeles and both D-2 and D-3 moved in with D-l. While in California, D-2 was arrested on a warrant issued in Park County, Wyoming for bad checks she wrote in Cody. The Park County sheriff and his wife travelled to California to bring D-2 back to face the check writing charges. It was on this trip back to Wyoming when D-2 first began to relate her sexual abuse history to the authorities.

In our discussion of the alleged trial errors, we will further relate the relevant facts as necessary.

DISCUSSION

Clinical Psychologist’s Expert Testimony

Appellant makes two challenges to the admission of expert testimony from the State’s expert. First, he argues that the testimony was the equivalent of vouching for the victim’s credibility. Second, appellant asserts that the expert should not have been permitted to testify concerning the “Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome” (CSAAS). Both of these objections are premised on W.R.E. 702 which permits admission of expert testimony only if it will assist the trier of fact. Rule 702 provides:

If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise.

Appellant correctly asserts that expert opinion which vouches for the victim’s credibility violates W.R.E. 702. Montoya v. State, 822 P.2d 363, 365 (Wyo.1991); citing Zabel v. State, 765 P.2d 357 (Wyo.1988). Then appellant argues that expert testimony which discusses CSAAS violates W.R.E. 702 because CSAAS is not generally recognized in the field of psychology and thus is not sufficiently reliable to assist the jury-

In order to properly address these issues, it is necessary to understand the content of the expert’s testimony. Dr. Ned Tranel was qualified as an expert in child psychology and child sexual psychopathology. [745]*745The relevant testimony developed as follows:

[Dr. Tranel]: There is, when one encounters a condition of child sexual psychology, child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome and a syndrome refers to a pattern of behaviors which are called symptoms, and in order for this syndrome to exist, then we look at the presence of or question whether they are, there is evidence of certain characteristics or symptoms, and there are five of these.
[Prosecutor]: Could you list those?
[Dr. Tranel]: * * * [F]irst one is secrecy * * *. The second one is a sense of hopelessness, and the reason that’s relevant is because there is usually a child involved and usually the perpetrator is an adult * * *.
The third characteristic is a pattern of accommodation, * * * which enables the person to survive over a long period of time * * *.
The fourth characteristic is delayed reporting. Sometimes disclosure is used instead of reporting, and reporting is delayed and conflicted, and the reason for this, and in this case there is a classic pattern here[.]
******
The last characteristic we find in this syndrome is retraction or sometimes called recanting or taking back the disclosure of the sexual abuse * * *.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
849 P.2d 741, 1993 Wyo. LEXIS 64, 1993 WL 84446, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/frenzel-v-state-wyo-1993.