stating that the credibility of a witness is for the jury to decide, and that “[n]o witness … should be permitted to give an opinion that another mentally and physically competent witness is telling the truth.”
How later courts described this case
- stating that the credibility of a witness is for the jury to decide, and that “[n]o witness … should be permitted to give an opinion that another mentally and physically competent witness is telling the truth.”
- holding that psychiatrist effectively told the jury that sexual assault victim was telling the truth by opining “that there ‘was no doubt whatsoever’ that [she] was an incest victim”
- stating that an expert witness's opinion, "with its aura of scientific reliability, creates too great a possibility that the jury abdicated its fact-finding role to the [expert]"
- concluding that an expert opinion that there was "no doubt whatsoever" that the complainant was an incest victim was inadmissible
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
CANE, J.
(dissenting) The trial court admitted the psychiatric testimony to show why the sexual assault victim “did not report or complain about the matter immediately after the act and for an extended period thereafter.” Additionally, the testimony demonstrates that because she matched the psychological profile of an incest victim, she indeed was an incest victim. The majority reasons that because it relates to her credibility, such expert testimony is inadmissible. I disagree. Because the testimony aided the jury in evaluating the credibility of a testifying child and in making a more informed decision, I would affirm the trial court.
The testimony is relevant to whether the incest, in fact, occurred. Simply because it may corroborate her testimony does not make it any more inadmissible than a physician’s testimony, after examining an alleged sexual assault victim, that, in fact, a forcible sexual assault occurred. Similarly, we allow psychiatrists to testify whether a person is suffering from a mental illness.
Here, the father denied committing incest, claiming *99 that the daughter was a chronic liar. The psychiatrist was sufficiently familiar with familial sexual abuse and was able to arrive at a diagnosis after a careful and ihorough examination of the daughter. If the presence of an incest victim syndrome is detectable and reliable as evidence that incest, in fact, occurred, it is relevant when a father denies that incest, in fact, took place. The expert’s opinion is offered as any other evidence, with the expert subject to cross-examination and the jury left to determine its weight.
I would adopt the reasoning of the Oregon and Kansas courts, which permit similar type of psychiatric testimony. See State v. Middleton, 657 P.2d 1215 (Or. 1983); State v. Marks, 647 P.2d 1292 (Kan. 1982). Whether to admit an expert’s testimony is within the trial court’s sound discretion. I would therefore conclude that the trial court reasonably exercised its discretion in admitting the psychiatric testimony.
Nor would I conclude that the trial court erred in allowing testimony by an older daughter about the father’s sexually suggestive misconduct approximately ten years earlier. This was relevant evidence admissible under sec. 904.04(2), Stats., to show a general scheme or plan and motive. See Hendrickson v. State, 61 Wis. 2d 275, 282 , 212 N.W.2d 481, 483-84 (1973). The court also determined that the testimony’s probative value outweighed the prejudice to the defendant. Again, the trial court made a rational exercise of its discretion.