People v. Wright
| Decision Date | 24 October 2016 |
| Docket Number | B269705 |
| Citation | 208 Cal.Rptr.3d 686,4 Cal.App.5th 537 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. John WRIGHT, Defendant and Appellant. |
Gerald L. Miller, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Scott A. Taryle, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and John Yang, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
JOHNSON
, J.
In January 2016, the trial court, pursuant to the Sexually Violent Predator Act (SVPA) (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6600 et seq.1
), found John Wright (Wright) to be a sexually violent predator (SVP) and committed him to a state hospital for an indefinite term.
On appeal, Wright advances a number of different arguments, including that the commitment order was not supported by substantial evidence. In particular, Wright argues that the diagnosis of hebephilia by the People's expert was fundamentally flawed due, inter alia, to a lack of information about the physical characteristics and/or sexual development of the victims. We agree with Wright. With regard to the diagnosed mental disorder offered by the People, “ ‘there is simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion proffered.’ ” (Sargon Enterprises, Inc. v. University of Southern California (2012) 55 Cal.4th 747, 771, 149 Cal.Rptr.3d 614, 288 P.3d 1237
(Sargon ).) Accordingly, we reverse the judgment.
BACKGROUND
In 1996, Wright sustained a conviction for committing a lewd act upon a 14–year–old female in 1995, a conviction which resulted in a six-month jail term and probation. At the time of the offense, Wright was 26 years old. The victim reported being forcibly abducted and pulled into a car by Wright, who took her to an apartment and fondled and kissed her before she could escape. Initially, the People charged Wright with kidnapping, as well as committing a lewd act, but subsequently dropped the kidnapping charge as a part of a plea agreement.
In 2001, at age 30, Wright suffered convictions for committing lewd acts on two underage females, a 14 year old and a 15 year old in 1999. Wright met the 14–year–old victim on a bus, telling her that he was 18 years old and a college student. Although a sexual relationship eventually developed between Wright and the 15–year–old victim, the victim reported to the police that Wright was “overly aggressive” with her, that she was afraid she would be sexually assaulted or raped. With regard to the 14–year–old victim, Wright entered into a sexual relationship with the girl over a period of weeks that eventually led to intercourse.
In 2005, at the age of 36, Wright suffered another sex offense conviction, this time for oral copulation with a female under the age of 18. Wright approached the victim at a gas station, and quickly cultivated a social and then a sexual relationship with the victim. Eventually, the victim's father confronted Wright because the victim had loaned Wright money, and had learned that Wright was not his stated age and that he had a history of sexual offenses.
Following the 2005 conviction, the People filed a petition to commit Wright to Coalinga State Hospital for an indefinite term under the SVPA. Two probable cause hearings were held—one in June 2007, the other in February 2012—in which the respective courts found that there was probable cause to proceed to trial under the SVPA and hold Wright in a secured facility pending trial.
On May 27, 2015, Wright waived his right to a jury trial. On January 11–12, 2016, the trial court conducted a bench trial. Only two witnesses testified, both experts, both psychologists: for the People, Dr. Michael Musacco (Dr. Musacco); and for Wright, Dr. Amy Phoenix (Dr. Phoenix).
Based, inter alia, on his interviews and evaluations of Wright (February 2007, May 2011, and November/December 2015), Dr. Musacco diagnosed Wright with “paraphilia
not otherwise specified, hebephilia.” Dr. Musacco explained,
In making his diagnosis, Dr. Musacco made a number of concessions. First, hebephilia is a “rare” diagnosis. Second, it is a somewhat controversial diagnosis. So controversial, in fact, that it was deliberately excluded from the fifth and newest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (published in 2013) (DSM–5), a manual published by the American Psychiatric Association to “identify criteria for the classification of mental disorders.” (People v. Johnson (2015) 235 Cal.App.4th 80, 83, 185 Cal.Rptr.3d 135
.)2
Third, the diagnosis is dependent on knowing more than the victim's age—because children mature physically and develop sexually at different ages, it is important to a know a victim's appearance for that is what is driving the defendant's behavior. In other words, based purely on age, a 15–year–old victim could easily but inaccurately be characterized as postpubescent; similarly a 14–year–old victim who has matured more rapidly than his or her peers could, for purposes of diagnosis, be properly categorized as postpubescent. On a related note, Dr. Musacco admitted that girls begin maturing and finish maturing before boys.
Fourth, and perhaps most critically, Dr. Musacco conceded that he did not know anything about Wright's victims other than their ages at the times of the offenses. As a result, Dr. Musacco had to “hypothesiz[e] that [Wright's] behavior” with regard to the first three victims was driven by their presumed “lack of full sexual development.”
Because of this lack of information, Dr. Musacco stated plainly that it is “debatable” whether the hebephilia diagnosis applies to Wright. As Dr. Musacco explained, Because he did not have descriptions of the victims' “body types” or any information about the victims' “development of any sexual characteristics,” Dr. Musacco had to make “assumptions that their physical development [wa]s such that [it] meets with the definition of hebephilia.” Dr. Musacco acknowledged that certain risks accompanied his assumptions: “[I]f the 15–year–old wasn't pubescent, if the 14–year–olds weren't pubescent, the diagnosis would be inaccurate.” As Dr. Musacco explained, “if I knew their body type I could be firm in my opinion or I would retract my opinion.”
Finally, Dr. Musacco conceded that Wright's behavior since being admitted to Coalinga State Hospital has been “very good,” exhibiting both sexual and general “self-regulation,” “no sexual acting out whatsoever.”
As a result of these concessions, Dr. Musacco repeatedly characterized his diagnosis as a “close call” or a “close case.” On a scale of 1–10, with one being a weak case and 10 being a strong case, Dr. Musacco rated Wright's case as a “six.”
After the People rested, Wright moved, pursuant to Penal Code section 1118
, to dismiss the petition on the grounds that the People had failed to meet their burden of proof with regard to the existence of a diagnosed mental disorder. The court denied the motion, ruling that the People's evidence was “barely” sufficient to survive Wright's motion to dismiss.
Like Dr. Musacco, Dr. Phoenix evaluated Wright on several occasions (October/November 2008, December 2010, and October 2015). However, unlike Dr. Musacco, Dr. Phoenix concluded that Wright was not a SVP and “did not have a diagnosed mental disorder, according to the law.” Dr. Phoenix did not offer a psychological diagnosis because she did not think “there is sufficient evidence to support a sexual abnormality of any type.”3
While Dr. Phoenix was familiar with Dr. Musacco's diagnosis, and with the concept of hebephilia, she was troubled by the lack of evidence demonstrating that Wright was aroused to females in the middle of pubescence (generally, girls aged 11 through 13 and sometimes 14), which is the stage generally associated with hebephilia. Dr. Phoenix believed it was impossible to determine whether Wright's victims were at that stage, because the only data consisted of their respective ages, and there was no information regarding their “sexual characteristics” or “sexual maturity.” Of particular significance to Dr. Phoenix was the fact that Wright did not commit any offenses against females between the ages of 11 and 13:
In order to make a diagnosis of hebephilia, Dr. Phoenix believed that she would have to make a “broad assumption” that the victims of the 1995 and 1999 offenses were in the middle of their pubescence, when there was no such confirming information: “I think in this case there is just insufficient information to make that kind of assumption.”
Dr. Phoenix declined to make any generalizations or assumptions about Wright's alleged preference for pubescent females for reasons other than the lack of information about the victims. While pertinent information on the victims was absent, there was information about Wright himself which pointed away from a hebephilia...
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