Opinion
A152157
11-19-2018
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. CARISSA ANNE ALDRICH, Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Solano County Super. Ct. No. FCR318071)
Defendant Carissa Anne Aldrich appeals a judgment convicting her of involuntary manslaughter and sentencing her to three years in prison. She contends the court erred by barring testimony by her expert witness regarding common behaviors exhibited by victims of domestic violence. We find no prejudicial error and thus shall affirm the judgment.
Factual and Procedural History
Defendant was charged by information with a single count of involuntary manslaughter (Pen. Code, § 192, subd. (b)).
The following evidence was admitted at trial:
At around 10:30 p.m. on October 24, 2015, Cynthia Roberts was awakened by a phone call from her daughter, the defendant. Defendant told Roberts that she and her husband (Tim Aldrich) had been fighting when her 10-year-old son cut Tim with a kitchen knife. Defendant reported that it was not a very big cut and she was able to get the wound to stop bleeding by applying pressure to it. Roberts agreed that defendant could bring her son to stay with her.
For purposes of clarity, we refer to the victim by his first name. --------
About an hour later, defendant called her mother a second time and asked her mother to pick up her grandson. Defendant explained that she did not want to leave Tim alone. Before leaving, Roberts listened to a phone message that her grandson had previously left her. A recording of the phone message was played for the jury. The parties agree that on the recording, Tim could be heard saying that he was dying and that he was bleeding out and hurting.
Roberts arrived at defendant's home around midnight. Tim was lying on his side on the kitchen floor near the dining room. There was a large pool of blood on the floor. When Roberts asked Tim how he was, he smiled and said he was fine, indicating that he wanted to lie where he was for a "couple of minutes." Roberts offered a couple of pillows to Tim. He took the pillows and placed one or both under this head. Before she left, Roberts returned to the kitchen and asked Tim a second time if he was okay and he again replied that he was fine. Roberts returned with her grandson to her home, where they went to sleep. Roberts did not call 911 because defendant told her that Tim did not want to go to the doctor because he was afraid he would be arrested.
Around 5:00 a.m., Roberts was awakened by a third phone call from defendant. Defendant said that Tim had finally indicated that he wanted to go to the hospital but defendant had been unable to get him in the car. She asked her mother what she should do. Roberts told defendant to call 911. When defendant asked her mother what she should say about how he was injured, Roberts told defendant that she had no idea what to say but that defendant should get him to the hospital for help.
At 5:56 a.m., defendant called 911 and requested an ambulance for Tim. She was not truthful about how he had been injured. The firefighter who responded to defendant's home found Tim unresponsive, and later determined that he had died before they arrived.
An autopsy determined that Tim bled to death. The doctor testified that to avoid death, his wounds would have required trained medical attention. A person with his wounds could live for hours. He would be able to speak initially but would eventually lose that function. As time passed, the possibility of surviving the wounds would decrease; however, even after several hours, the victim might have survived with medical intervention.
Defendant testified that after Tim was stabbed, he yelled at her and told her to "fix it." In response, she retrieved first aid supplies and attempted to stop the bleeding. As Tim moved, blood squirted from his wounds. He repeatedly tried to sit in a chair but was unable to remain upright and twice fell to the ground, hitting his head. She understood that Tim's condition was serious and that the situation was an emergency.
Defendant testified that she did not call for an ambulance because Tim would not allow her to call 911. She explained that she and Tim had a history of domestic violence and that she had a "criminal restraining order" against Tim. When she had called the police in the past, it had adversely affected the marriage. Tim had been arrested twice, she and Tim had incurred the cost of bail and attorney fees, Tim had lost his job, and his family had shunned her. When she saw the blood squirting from his body, she told Tim that he should go to the emergency room. Tim replied that he was not going to give the district attorney another reason to "fuck" with him and arrest him for domestic violence or child abuse. He said "hell no" to defendant's suggestion that they go to the emergency room, indicating that he thought the police would arrest him again.
After defendant's mother left, Tim decided to rest on the couch for the night. Later, however, Tim yelled that he wanted to go to the hospital. Defendant was shocked and confused by the reversal of his demands and thought he might be joking. She ran to him but all she could hear was mumbling. She repeatedly asked him to let her call 911. He had his eyes closed and would no longer respond to her. By the time she called her mother to ask for advice, Tim was no longer mumbling or shaking his head. She could not physically move him to her car and she still thought she needed his permission to call 911. Her mother told her to call 911 anyway. After ending the call with her mother, defendant waited 47 minutes before calling 911. During that time she was trying to get him to wake up.
Defendant sought to present the testimony of David Cropp, a domestic violence expert, "about the common misconceptions of domestic violence." Following a hearing under Evidence Code section 402, the court excluded the testimony as irrelevant.
The jury found defendant guilty as charged and the court sentenced defendant to the midterm of three years in prison. Defendant timely filed a notice of appeal.
Discussion
The jury was instructed pursuant to CALCRIM No. 582, which provides that, to find a defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter, a jury must find that "1. The defendant had a legal duty to [decedent]; [¶] 2. The defendant failed to perform that legal duty; [¶] 3. The defendant's failure was criminally negligent; [¶] AND [¶] 4. The defendant's failure caused the death of [decedent]." The jury was further instructed that "A person who voluntarily provides care for an injured person has a legal duty to act as an ordinarily reasonable person would have acted under the same or similar circumstances. [¶] Criminal negligence involves more than ordinary carelessness, inattention, or mistake in judgment. A person acts with criminal negligence when: [¶] 1. He or she acts or fails to act in a reckless way that creates a high risk of death or great bodily injury; [¶] AND [¶] 2. A reasonable person would have known that acting or failing to act in that way would create such a risk. [¶] In other words, a person acts with criminal negligence when the way he or she acts or fails to act is so different from how an ordinarily careful person would act in the same situation that his or her actions or failure to act amounts to a disregard for human life or indifference to the consequences of that act."
In closing argument, the prosecutor argued that defendant breached her duty to act as an ordinarily reasonable person would by failing to call 911 or "put him in the car and take him to the hospital, get some help from others who can help . . . him get to where he needs to be." Defense counsel argued that a reasonable person would not necessarily seek expert medical attention when the victim was afraid he would be arrested if he went to the hospital and had refused to go. Under these circumstances, defendant argued she acted reasonably when she opted "to take care of him the best she could" at home. While the prosecutor argued that defendant's failure to seek aid was reckless, defendant argued that her failure to seek aid was simply a mistake in judgment. Defense counsel suggested that there was no criminal negligence because defendant did not have any intention of hurting Tim.
On appeal, defendant contends the trial court erred by excluding the proffered testimony from her expert about the fact that victims of domestic violence frequently do not call the police for assistance and about the reasons for which they do not do so. A trial court has wide discretion to admit or exclude expert testimony. (People v. Page (1991) 2 Cal.App.4th 161, 187.) Its decision will not be disturbed on appeal unless a manifest abuse of discretion in shown. (People v. Roberts (1992) 2 Cal.4th 271, 298.)
At the section 402 hearing, the proffered expert confirmed that he had not examined the defendant or read any of the police reports and counsel confirmed that the expert would not be opining that defendant suffered from the battered woman or other domestic violence syndromes. The expert stated, "I have made no assessment in this case, and I have no idea how the victim in this case has learned to cope with any abuse that she may have faced." However, defense counsel argued to the trial court that it was "important for the jury to understand why even though my client was able to call 9-1-1 on two occasions why she then stopped calling 9-1-1 and even in a situation that was very serious could not call 9-1-1. It's also important for the jury to understand why she — when she did call 9-1-1 why she would then not be honest and [would] present a story that was different than what actually occurred. Her testimony was that she was trying to avoid her husband being arrested and also to pleas[e] her mother-in law and, that is an example of counterintuitive behavior."
The Attorney General argues that "Cropp's experience with domestic violence victims' behavior was out of sync with the facts of this case." Stated differently, the proffered testimony had little or no relevance to the present situation. The issue here was not whether defendant's prior abusive treatment tended to explain assaultive action on her part, as was the situation in the cases cited by defendant. (People v. Humphrey (1996) 13 Cal.4th 1073, 1088-1089 ["evidence of battered women's syndrome is generally relevant to the reasonableness, as well as the subjective existence, of defendant's belief in the need to defend"]; People v. Sotelo-Urena (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th 732, 744 ["Defendant's actual belief in the need to use lethal force and the reasonableness of that belief , were . . . squarely at issue in his trial."].) Here, not only was there no evidence that defendant was suffering from a recognized medical syndrome, she was not the person who struck the victim and she was never during the time period in question in fear for her own safety. There was no question about whether her prior abuse rendered a perception of danger credible or reasonable. Rather, the only question was whether the defendant acted reasonably in failing to seek assistance when she tended the profusely bleeding victim. Defendant explained at length why she claimed not to have done so. The expert's opinion that "it's very common for abuse to occur and it not be reported to the police," or that it is "very common" for victims of domestic violence not to "cooperate with law enforcement once there has been a case filed," or that "many times for the reasons I've mentioned victims of domestic violence don't seek help from the police, they don't report to the police," would have shed no light on whether defendant's reasons for not seeking assistance were credible or, if they were, whether they were reasonable.
Under the instructions given, the jury necessarily found that a reasonable person would have known that the failure to seek medical attention for the victim created a high risk of death or great bodily injury. Defendant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence in support of this finding. Nor does she argue that her expert's testimony had any relevance to the ability of a reasonable person to appreciate the risk posed by failing to seek medical attention. As the prosecutor argued in closing, if everything defendant said was true and she was faced with a choice between "calling 9-1-1 and summoning help to save his life" and "allowing him to die so that [she] [didn't] have to worry about being shunned by the family or that Tim would give [her] a hard time the next day," her decision to do the latter was "patently unreasonable." Even if the expert should have been permitted to testify—which we do not hold—there is no likelihood that the proffered testimony would have altered the jury's finding that defendant's failure to seek medical attention for Tim was unreasonable.
Finally, contrary to defendant's argument, even if erroneous the exclusion of the expert's testimony did not rise to the level of constitutional error because defendant was allowed to testify about how her history of domestic violence impacted her decision not to immediately seek medical attention for the victim. (People v. Fudge (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1075, 1103 [Watson standard applies where "there was no refusal to allow [defendant] to present a defense, but only a rejection of some evidence concerning the defense.' "].)
Disposition
The judgment is affirmed.
Pollak, J. We concur: Siggins, P.J.
Jenkins, J.