State v. Rhone, 90-0667
| Citation | 566 So.2d 1367 |
| Decision Date | 19 September 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-0667,90-0667 |
| Parties | 15 Fla. L. Weekly D2351 STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Derryel RHONE, Respondent. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Florida (US) |
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Miles Ferris, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for petitioner.
Alan H. Schreiber, Public Defender and Robert F. Diaz, Asst. Public Defender, Fort Lauderdale, for respondent.
This petition for writ of certiorari is filed by the State to review a pretrial order in a criminal case granting a defense motion for expert psychological examination of the victim of a sexual battery. By previous order we denied the petition, and we now explain our reasons.
The respondent in this case is the defendant in the criminal action below. Respondent is charged by information with two counts of sexual battery, two counts of battery, and one count of kidnapping against a woman with whom he has cohabitated off and on for the last few years and with whom he also fathered a child. The events surrounding the criminal incident are somewhat sketchy in this record, but the charges arise from a weekend episode between the victim and defendant. The victim accompanied the defendant apparently voluntarily to his home or his relatives' home and remained there for a twelve to twenty-four hour period. During that period the alleged sexual battery took place. However, the victim apparently did not immediately attempt to escape and in fact remained in the house with defendant and his relatives, even eating breakfast together without making the relatives aware that anything was wrong.
The State seeks to introduce evidence from a Dr. Douglas, a psychological expert in the area of the "Battered Woman Syndrome," to bolster its case regarding the element of lack of consent on the counts of sexual battery, anticipating that from these facts whether or not the victim consented to sex with the defendant is a material issue. It will be the State's contention at trial that, because of a history of an abusive relationship between the victim and the defendant, the victim was incapable of consenting to the sexual intercourse. Dr Douglas testified that based upon the history recited to her by the victim and the manner in which the victim expressed herself about the relationship, that the victim exhibited symptoms of the "Battered Spouse Syndrome" which made her unable to refuse, and her fear causes her to behave in ways that appear to show "things are normal" when in fact they are not.
The defense moved for an order requiring the victim to submit to an independent psychological examination contending that if such testimony was offered, an examination was essential to refute the State's case. The trial court expressed strong reservations about the admissibility to Dr. Douglas' testimony, but when the State persisted in its intent to use her as an expert witness, the court granted the motion finding that fundamental fairness required that the defendant be entitled to present a fair defense to the case of the State. Since the State sought to introduce the expert testimony based on a psychological examination, the trial court determined that the defense was entitled to counter it by having an independent examination. The trial court did not simply require the victim to be examined by defendant's doctor. Instead, the order requires both sides to furnish lists of psychologists from which the court will make the selection of the independent examining expert.
We are concerned in this case with a compelled mental examination of a victim such as was the issue in Dinkins v. State, 244 So.2d 148 (Fla. 4th DCA 1971). In Dinkins the defense had moved for a psychiatric examination of a rape victim for the purpose of furnishing a possible basis of impeachment. 1 This court refused to require such an examination with a caveat.
Nonetheless, it strikes us as sound, in the absence of either express statutory authority or court rule permitting such, or in the absence of such strong and compelling evidence of mental or emotional instability of the prosecutrix that denial of a psychiatric examination could amount to a denial of due process of law, that the court should not subject the prosecutrix to such an examination. Thus, while we do not expressly reject the concept of the court possessing...
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