# People v. Humphrey

> California Supreme Court · August 29, 1996 · 13 Cal. 4th 1073

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9529889

## Case

- **Full name:** The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. EVELYN HUMPHREY, Defendant and Appellant
- **Court:** California Supreme Court
- **Decided:** August 29, 1996
- **Citations:** 13 Cal. 4th 1073; 96 Daily Journal DAR 10609; 56 Cal. Rptr. 2d 142; 921 P.2d 1; 96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 6509; 1996 Cal. LEXIS 4222
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Werdegar
- **Judges:** Chin, Baxter, Werdegar, Brown
- **Cited by:** 383 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9529889

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding that any effort to distinguish the admissibility of evidence of a victim’s behavior toward a defendant and expert testimony about the effects of such behavior on the defendant is “untenable”

## Opinion text

WERDEGAR, J., Concurring.
Like Justice Brown, I agree with the majority’s general conclusions but believe the instructional question calls for a *1092 more specific analysis of the relationship between expert testimony and a claim of reasonable self-defense. For the reasons explained in Justice Brown’s concurring opinion, expert testimony regarding battered woman’s syndrome is not relevant to the objective reasonableness of the defendant’s belief in the need for self-defense unless the defendant’s claim of reasonableness is based upon facts that would not, outside of a battering relationship, tend to show the reasonableness of the defendant’s belief in the need to use deadly force. (Conc. opn. of Brown, J., post, at p. 1098.)
Although not explicitly stated in Justice Brown’s opinion, it follows that in cases not meeting this description—cases, that is, in which the claim of reasonable belief is not dependent on expert testimony as to the nature of a battering relationship—a trial court would not err by giving a limiting instruction of the type suggested in People v. Aris (1989) 215 Cal.App.3d 1178, 1199 [ 264 Cal.Rptr. 167 ], and given in the instant case. Nor would a court err in any case by limiting the jury’s use of battered woman’s syndrome (BWS) evidence on the question of reasonableness to that aspect of the expert testimony actually relating to the reasonableness of the defendant’s belief in the need for self-defense.
I part company from Justice Brown insofar as her analysis depends upon Evidence Code section 801. (See conc. opn. of Brown, J., post, at p. 1095.) Evidence Code section 1107 declares BWS evidence admissible, when offered by the defense, upon a foundation of relevance and proper qualification of the expert witness. The Legislature has thus commanded BWS be treated as a proper subject for expert testimony, whether or not it would otherwise meet the generally applicable test of Evidence Code section 801.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9529889. Public record. Not legal advice.