Com. v. McIlvaine

• Citation: 529 Pa. 381,603 A.2d 1021
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Carl Edwin McILVAINE, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 20 March 1992
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 1021

603 A.2d 1021

529 Pa. 381

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Carl Edwin McILVAINE, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued Sept. 23, 1991.

Decided March 20, 1992.

Appeal No. 30 W.D. Appeal Dkt. 1990 from Order of Superior Court, 385 Pa.Super. 38, 560 A.2d 155 (1989), entered May 17, 1989, at Nos. 1035 and 1036 Pittsburgh 1988, Affirming in Part and Reversing in Part the Order of the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County, Criminal Division, entered June 17, 1988, at No. 1321 of 1986 and Remanding Case.

Bruce A. Antkowiak, Greensburg, for appellant.

John C. Pettit, Dist. Atty., Bradley M. Bassi, Penny A. Paxton, Asst. Dist. Attys. and Dennis M. Makel, Washington, for appellee.

Before NIX, C.J., and LARSEN, FLAHERTY, McDERMOTT, ZAPPALA, PAPADAKOS and CAPPY, JJ.

ORDER

PER CURIAM:

Order of Superior Court reversed. See Commonwealth v. Seese, 512 Pa. 439, 517 A.2d 920 (1986).

LARSEN, J., files a dissenting opinion in which PAPADAKOS, J., joins.

McDERMOTT, J., dissents.

LARSEN, Justice, dissenting.

I strenuously dissent from the travesty of "justice" being perpetrated herein. Erroneous and blind adherence to formula is antithetical to the goals of the criminal justice system, i.e., protecting victims and society and punishing the criminal wrongdoer. In its headlong rush to exclude any manner of expert testimony from child sexual abuse cases, the majority is depriving juries of information that would be helpful in reaching fair and just determinations in these cases.

The issue of significance raised by this appeal is whether the testimony of a clinical psychiatric social worker pertaining to his personal observations of the correlation between the information provided by troubled youths regarding the events that led them to treatment at a psychiatric hospital and the information provided by the members of their families constituted an impermissible infringement upon the credibility determining function of the jury in a child sexual abuse case. ¹ In citing Commonwealth v. Seese, 512 Pa. 439, 517 A.2d 920 (1986), to support its reversal of the Superior Court order reversing the trial court's grant of a new trial, the majority is committing a grave and needless error that will have lifelong consequences for an innocent child sexual abuse victim.

Appellant, Carl Edwin McIlvaine, was convicted by a jury in the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory rape, indecent assault, and corrupting the morals of a minor. His victim, the twelve year old granddaughter of a close family friend and neighbor, testified that the offensive conduct occurred during a one year period in 1985 and 1986 and involved approximately one hundred separate incidents which escalated from fondling and masturbation to oral and vaginal intercourse.

During the trial, the Commonwealth called clinical psychiatric social worker, Michael Weller, to the stand. Weller was called to testify as to the treatment he provided the victim after she was admitted to Southwood Hospital for severe depression, self-mutilation, and suicidal thoughts in December of 1986. Weller was questioned about his occupation, and he described his work with troubled children, only some of whom were the victims of sexual abuse. Within the context of outlining his role at Southwood in terms of all of the cases with which he dealt, Weller testified as follows:

Q And your occupation at Southwood was--

A My occupation at Southwood was defined as a clinical psychiatric social worker, and the specific functions of that job, as Doctor Ross had mentioned earlier, at the point of admission, I begin interviewing the family for past history, first starting with presenting problems, with the things that have led them and the child in coming to the hospital, and also looking at any past episodes, experiences or traumas that the child may have gone through. Part of that work is to interview extensively the family, and also the child, to pick up and see if there are any discrepancies in terms of what either of them are saying, and also to determine reliability of the information that's being provided to me. So, as a part of that function, in addition to getting the history from the family, I also talk to the child to either confirm or deny what the adults are telling me, and I have found, within the practice, at least the children I'm working with right now, have a fairly high reliability of the information--

[Defense Counsel]: Objection.

Reproduced Record at 241-42 (emphasis added).

The trial court refused to grant an immediate request for mistrial on the basis of Weller's statement regarding the "fairly high reliability of the...