People v. Scherr

272 Cal. App. 2d 165, 77 Cal. Rptr. 35, 1969 Cal. App. LEXIS 2257
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 21, 1969
DocketCrim. 14515
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 272 Cal. App. 2d 165 (People v. Scherr) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Scherr, 272 Cal. App. 2d 165, 77 Cal. Rptr. 35, 1969 Cal. App. LEXIS 2257 (Cal. Ct. App. 1969).

Opinions

REPPY, J.

Defendant-appellant Seherr was found guilty by a jury of two violations of section 288 and one violation of section 288a of the Penal Code. Thereafter, through appropriate proceedings, defendant was placed at Atascadero State Hospital for a 90-day diagnosis period and, after observation was found to be a mentally disordered sex offender but not amenable to treatment. Two years later he was returned to court, and, at a probation and sentence hearing, he was found still to be a mentally disordered sex offender. Proceedings were suspended, and he was placed on probation for five years on certain specified conditions. Defendant took a timely appeal from the order granting probation.

[167]*167At the trial there was substantial evidence presented by the prosecution to support the finding that defendant committed an act in violation of section 288 of the Penal Code on his 11-year-old daughter and an act in violation of section 288 and another act in violation of 288a of the Penal Code on his 10-year-old son. Forthrightly, defendant does not claim that there was insufficient evidence to support the verdict with respect to each of these counts. However, he urgently does contend that the trial court erred (1) in denying him the right to examine a psychiatrist, called by the prosecution in rebuttal to the defense, on voir dire in the absence of the jury to test the competence of certain oral and written admissions of defendant about which it was represented the psychiatrist would testify; and (2) in admitting into evidence the testimony of the psychiatrist which related the oral admission made by defendant and identified a written admission made by him, because to do so constituted an invasion of his right to privacy. Again, forthrightly, defendant does not urge that admitting this evidence was a violation of a confidential communication between doctor and patient, recognizing that no such rule was applicable to criminal cases at the time of this trial, April 1965. Defendant further contends that the trial court erred in failing to give sua sponte the usual cautionary instruction with respect to oral admissions of a defendant. Finally, he takes exception to the inclusion of the term 11 concurrently ’ ’ in the order granting probation.

Some facts and trial steps pertinent to the issues under consideration are these: Defendant was the father of the two victims. There had been a divorce secured by the mother who had received custody of the children. Defendant had rights of visitation. On Thanksgiving Day of 1964 defendant was exercising his right of visitation with some of the children, the two victims and an older daughter, who was then 13. He took them to a family Thanksgiving affair at the home of one of his relatives.

The 13-year-old daughter did not testify in the prosecution ’s case in chief and was involved in other evidence only to the extent of being shown to have been present at the get-together, to have gone to a bedroom door at a time when defendant and the 10-year-old son were alleged to have been in the bedroom, and to have knocked and announced that they should come to eat. Defendant testified in his own behalf, denied that he had committed the offenses and testified that at no time had he ever molested any of his children.

[168]*168In light of this testimony of defendant, the prosecution called the 13-year-old daughter in rebuttal. She testified, in part, that her father had molested her and that previously she had told somebody that her father had placed his private parts in her private parts.

At a time when the jury was not present, the prosecution announced that for further rebuttal it was calling a psychiatrist, a Dr. Gerty, who had examined defendent about seven years earlier, and to whom defendant had made certain admissions about his relations with his now 13-year-old daughter, who was then about seven. Following this psychiatric examination, apparently by reason of the psychiatrist’s advice, defendant had voluntarily admitted himself to a mental hospital. Defense counsel objected to Dr. Gerty testifying on the ground that the situation should be considered analogous to Dorado1 as involving an admission obtained without advice of constitutional rights. This objection was overruled (correctly so on this ground). In the argument about admissibility, there was only indirect allusion to the concept of the right of privacy upon which defendant now strictly relies. Defense counsel then asked to be allowed to examine Dr. Gerty on voir dire to determine whether or not defendant’s admissions, to which it was represented the doctor would testify, were voluntarily given. The suggestion was made that, since defendant very shortly thereafter was admitted to a mental hospital, he might have been in such a mental state whereby he could not have made knowingly a voluntary admission.

The trial judge refused the request on the basis that the evidence on the issue of voluntariness “would be subject to the consideration of the jury’’; that he didn’t “think it . . . [was] a matter of voir dire. ’ ’

Dr. Gerty, before the jury, then testified on direct examination that he was a specialist in psychiatry; that he was a friend of the Scherr family and a close acquaintance of defendant’s father, Dr. Scherr; that he examined defendant on 2 December 1958; that in the course of the examination defendant stated to him that he had been having sex play with his little girl, “inserting between the legs’’; that he gave defendant a check list to fill out in his own handwriting which had a place for the making of notations as to problems; that the normal procedure was for the patient to fill out the cheek list in a test booth; that it would be safe to say that [169]*169defendant wrote on the exhibited check list the statement “sexual problems with daughter among other things.” This check list was received in evidence.

In surrebuttal a Dr. Gallagher and Dr. Scherr (defendant’s father) testified that the 13-year-old daughter had recently been examined and that the examination indicated the hymenal ring was intact.

CALJIC Instruction No. 29 D (evidence of an oral admission of the defendant ought to be viewed with caution) was not requested by defendant at the time of trial. It was not given by the trial judge sua sponte.

The minutes for 5 October 1967 which constitute the order placing the defendant on probation, read in part as follows:

“Defendant’s motion for new trial is denied. In each Count Concurrently : Proceedings suspended. Probation granted for five years. [Then follow terms of probation.] ”

The Denial oe the Right to Examine Psychiatrist on Voir Dire.

Involved is an admission to a private person not connected with law enforcement which does not relate to the crimes charged, but which constitutes contradiction of a broad exculpatory claim by defendant that he had never at any time molested any of his children. When defense counsel asserted that he wished to test the voluntariness of the admission in an advance voir dire procedure it is clear that he did not mean voluntary in the sense of being free from coercive measures (physical or psychological) of law enforcement, but rather in the sense of being free from irrationality, marital compulsion or mental subjugation of some kind.

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Related

People v. Manson
61 Cal. App. 3d 102 (California Court of Appeal, 1976)
People v. Slocum
52 Cal. App. 3d 867 (California Court of Appeal, 1975)
People v. Perkins
7 Cal. App. 3d 593 (California Court of Appeal, 1970)
People v. Scherr
272 Cal. App. 2d 165 (California Court of Appeal, 1969)

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Bluebook (online)
272 Cal. App. 2d 165, 77 Cal. Rptr. 35, 1969 Cal. App. LEXIS 2257, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-scherr-calctapp-1969.