People v. Aguirre

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. JORGE AGUIRRE, Defendant and Appellant.

G060193

California Court of Appeals, Fourth District, Third Division

October 7, 2021

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Santa Clara County No. C1803477 Paul O. Colin, Judge. Affirmed.

Lori A. Quick, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey M. Laurence, Assistant Attorney General, Rene A. Chacon and Julia Y. Je, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

OPINION

BEDSWORTH, ACTING P. J.

Appellant Jorge Aguirre was convicted of multiple counts of child sex abuse for molesting his girlfriend's daughter, Breanna. On appeal, he contends reversal is required because the trial court allowed the prosecution to present expert testimony on Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome (CSAAS) and erroneously instructed the jury on the permissible use of this testimony. Finding nothing improper about the expert testimony or jury instructions, we affirm the judgment.

FACTS

Breanna was born in 2003. Her mother Veronica was a heavy drug user and in 2010 she left Breanna's father for appellant. Over the next three years, Breanna, Veronica, and appellant lived together at various locations, including a detached garage and a house they shared with other tenants. At each place their living conditions were not only cramped, they were also chaotic, due to Veronica's drug addiction.

Once when Breanna was eight years old, appellant came into her bed and rubbed and penetrated her vagina with his fingers. The touching lasted several minutes before appellant relented and left the room. Another time at the same house, appellant gave Breanna a dildo and made her insert it into her vagina while he watched. There also was an incident where appellant put his hand down Breanna's pants and rubbed her vagina while she was sitting on his lap. Breanna testified these incidents were part of an overall pattern during which appellant touched her vagina at least once a week.

Breanna's mother Veronica also participated in the abuse at times. One such incident occurred after Breanna walked in on Veronica and appellant while they were in bed watching a pornographic movie and having sex. Instead of telling Breanna to leave the room, appellant removed her clothing and had her lay down on the bed. Then he forced Veronica's head down toward Breanna's vagina, and he and Veronica took turns orally copulating Breanna.

According to Breanna, appellant orally copulated her on several other occasions after that incident, and he also raped her. However, she does not have a clear recollection of every time he sexually abused her. While she remembers the general nature of the abuse, at trial she was unable to recall many of the attendant circumstances, such as when and where the abuse occurred because “it happened so much.” Breanna testified her memory of events is also hampered by the fact that when appellant was abusing her, she would often “freeze up” and try not think about what was happening.

Asked why she did not attempt to resist appellant or tell anyone about the abuse, Breanna testified that appellant threatened to kill her and Veronica if she revealed his behavior, and she did not think anyone would believe her. She also said appellant regularly subjected her to physical abuse whenever she disobeyed him or failed to act in accordance with his expectations.

However in 2015, at the age of 12, Breanna worked up the courage to tell her stepmother Christine about the abuse, after Christine told her that she herself had been a victim of sexual abuse. Christine called the police, and investigators interviewed Breanna several times about the allegations. Her statements to the police and her testimony at trial were basically consistent in terms of accusing appellant of repeated sexual abuse. But there were several inconsistencies with respect to where the abuse took place and what it entailed. For example, Breanna testified Veronica only orally copulated her one time appellant forced her to do so. However, Breanna told the police that Veronica orally copulated on three different occasions and that she was also involved in the dildo incident.

For her part, Veronica testified that she knew appellant was molesting Breanna because she saw him, and he admitted doing it. However, she did not do anything about it because she was always high on methamphetamine. Veronica also admitted that she and appellant orally copulated Breanna on the occasion when Breanna walked in on them while they were having sex. In exchange for her trial testimony, Veronica received a nine-year prison sentence as part of a plea agreement with the prosecution.

Over appellant's objection, the prosecutor also called Dr. Anna Washington as an expert witness on CSAAS. Because Dr. Washington was not familiar with the facts of the case, her testimony was limited to the general principles associated with CSAAS. After the prosecution established her credentials on that topic, the trial court instructed the jurors that Dr. Washington's testimony about CSAAS “is not evidence that the defendant committed any of the crimes charged against him. [¶] You may consider [her testimony] only in deciding whether or not Breanna's conduct was not inconsistent with the conduct of someone who has been molested and in evaluating the believability of Breanna's testimony.” (CALCRIM No. 1193.)

Dr. Washington testified CSAAS was developed in 1983 to “put forth an educational framework to help people better understand child sexual abuse victims, how they might react to sexual abuse, and also how they might commonly disclose or tell about sexual abuse.” She said that although CSAAS was derived from clinical research on children who have been sexually abused, it is not a diagnostic tool for identifying child sex abuse. Rather, CSAAS is a theoretical paradigm used to help explain the different concepts associated with that phenomenon.

Dr. Washington testified CSAAS has five components. The first one, secrecy, relates to the perpetrator's ability to isolate the victim and ensure they will not disclose the abusive conduct to anyone. The second component, helplessness, is the feeling children often get when they are being sexually abused by an adult on whom they depend for food, clothing or emotional support. Dr. Washington said many molestation victims fear they will lose these basic necessities if they report their abuser to the authorities.

Consequently, many victims feel entrapped in their abusive relationship and adopt accommodation strategies to help cope with their situation, which is the third component of CSAAS. One common coping mechanism described by Dr. Washington is dissociation, which is when the victim disconnects from the abuse by blanking out or focusing on something else while it is occurring. Dr. Washington said victims who use dissociation as a coping method often have more difficulty remembering specific details regarding how and when they were abused, which contributes to the fourth component of CSSAS: Delayed, unconvincing and conflicted disclosures.

Dr. Washington testified CSSAS research has shown most sexual abuse victims delay disclosure for years or never disclose their abuse at all. And if they do disclose, their account of what occurred may be vague or inconsistent because children often have difficulty recalling the peripheral details surrounding their abuse, such as when and where it took place. This is particularly true, Dr. Washington said, if the abuse occurred on a regular basis, over a substantial period of time.

Lastly, Dr. Washington testified about retraction, which is the fifth and final component of CSSAS. She said retraction tends to occur if the child receives a negative reaction or adverse consequences as a result of their decision to come forward and report their abuse to the authorities.

Testifying on his own behalf, appellant denied all the allegations against him. He admitted he once saw Veronica orally copulate Breanna after he and Veronica had sex. However, he said he did not have a problem with that because it was a private matter between Veronica and her daughter.

During his testimony, appellant was also confronted with the fact that while he was in jail before trial, he seemingly admitted in a phone call to one of his former girlfriends that he had orally copulated Breanna one time. Appellant told the jury he did not mean to suggest as much during the call, and he did not in fact molest Breanna at any time.

The jury found otherwise. It convicted appellant of three counts of forcible lewd conduct on a child and one count each of orally copulating and exhibiting pornographic material to a child. The trial court sentenced appellant to prison for 15 years to life, plus 33 years, for his crimes.

DISCUSSION

Appellant's arguments are broadly targeted at the general admissibility of CSAAS evidence in criminal trials. Irrespective of the relevance of Dr. Washington's testimony about that topic in this case, appellant contends CSAAS evidence violates due process and should be deemed inadmissible across the board in every case because it is unreliable, amorphous and will always lead the jury to believe the defendant is guilty of the charged offenses. We are not persuaded.

CSAAS evidence is widely accepted in courts throughout the United States. (People v. Munch (2020) 52 Cal.App.5th 464 468-472 (Munch).) Although a few state courts have limited or questioned its admissibility (see, e.g., State v. J.L.G. (N.J. 2018) 190 A.3d 442, 463 [CSAAS testimony may only be admitted to explain the child's delayed disclosure of abuse]...