1DCA Division 3 Oral Argument - 2025/10/08 - Oct 08, 2025

argument

1DCA Division 3 Oral Argument - 2025/10/08

California First District Court of Appeal 58 min 8 chapters transcribed 6 days ago official recording ↗

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What procedural steps does the court take at the start of the oral argument for People v. Travis DeWayne Hill?

Unknown 0:14

Good morning. Welcome. Please be seated.

Unknown 0:28

All right. Welcome to Division III's oral argument. You see that joining me on the bench this morning are my colleagues, Justice Karen Fujisaki and Justice Ioanna Petrou. And we will later in the morning have a panel change. There are three cases on the calendar. The first is People v. Travis DeWayne Hill. I believe that's a fully remote argument. So calling line one, may I have appearances, please? Senator Domkoski appearing for Appellant

Victoria Ratnikova 0:59

Hill. Thank you. Good morning, Your Honors. Victoria Ratnikova for Respondent.

Unknown 1:06

Good morning. Thank you both. Mr. Domkowski, the matter's on for 15 minutes. Would you like to reserve some of that for rebuttal? Yes, I'd like to reserve five minutes. All right. We'll try to help you keep track of time. The microphone is yours. Thank you. I want to discuss the possible policy considerations in reading Richardson to create an exception for 288 288.5, penal code section 288.5 to the Sixth Amendment. And I believe the tentative opinion considers that one of two considerations that Richardson used in its analysis. And I believe that's pages 16 to 17 of the tentative opinion. I believe I'm right. And the other one being CISN is holding, people versus CISN is holding that Richardson did not affect the constitutionality on the ground that 288.5 is an exception to the Sixth Amendment Jury Unanimity requirement because of the difficulty approving individual acts in cases of sexual child abuse based on generic testimony.

Unknown 2:28

I have two things I want to, that brings to mind. One, it looks to me like Calcrim 3501 resolves the difficulty of those difficult to prove crimes without reading Richardson to create an exception to the Sixth Amendment. And if you don't have it, I quoted it in the opening brief at page,

Unknown 3:12

75 or 76. Yes, it's from page 74 to 75. And the second. Paragraph number 2. It's actually. Are you referring to the paragraph that says you all agree that people have proved the defendant committed all the acts alleged to have occurred during this time period? Yes. Okay. And it would seem to me that that resolves the problem of the difficulty of proving a 288.5 case without making an exception to the Sixth Amendment. Well, Counsel, I'm not sure that we're trying to make an exception to the Sixth Amendment so much as to construe the Sixth Amendment in the context of a case that is proven by generic testimony. Isn't it... Doesn't the nature of generic testimony, and by generic testimony I mean a formerly child witness or a child witness who said, this happened many times, it happened every week, but doesn't necessarily distinguish between the first time, the second time, the third time, and so on?

Unknown 4:40

Well, I think that People v. Jones, the California Supreme Court case... that CalCrim 3501 was based on was addressing just this sort of issue, difficult to prove case because of generic testimony. I didn't look at it, but that's my memory. And in any case, if the paragraph does seem to resolve that generic testimony, Well, only if the jury unanimously agrees the defendant committed all of the acts, right? Right. Right. Right. So there's no real, you know, I suppose that's correct. It certainly seems to fit the case anyway. I can see your distinction there. But that is the point of it, is to resolve this sort of generic testimony case. The other thing I want to point out is whether you consider Richardson creating an exception to the Sixth Amendment for the generic testimony cases or not, it does

Unknown 6:12

OPEN THE DOOR, IT SEEMS TO ME, FOR LEGISLATURES TO CREATE DIFFICULT TO PROVE CRIMES AND AVOID THE REQUIREMENT IN THE WAY THEY DRAFT IT. I THINK THERE'S CERTAINLY THAT OPPORTUNITY THAT THIS COULD ENCOURAGE THAT KIND OF LEGISLATION. Also, there's the actus reus issue that California cases have held that the actus reus being a continuous course of conduct, basically continuous child abuse, is the actus reus rather than the individual acts. But it seems that the continuous series of violations is so similar, if not identical, to continuous sexual abuse of a child that it would also be the actus reus under that reasoning.