6DCA Oral Argument - 2026/03/05 Morning Session - Mar 05, 2026

argument

6DCA Oral Argument - 2026/03/05 Morning Session

California Sixth District Court of Appeal 1h 40m 8 chapters transcribed 10 days ago official recording ↗

▲ 0

Transcript

jump: chapters · find in transcript

Transcript

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What procedural steps did the court take at the start of the morning session?

Unknown 3:30

Did you? So good to meet you.

Unknown 5:14

So it's not specific.

Richard Kell 5:45

Good

Unknown 5:53

morning. Please be seated. We do have two matters on calendar this morning, and I see that we have largely remote appearances, although Mr. Haney is here in court, and good morning. So let's go ahead and we will just take a moment to connect here our electronic devices where we do have access to the briefs and the records and all the other materials involved in the cases. For those of you in the audience, counsel at the table there do have screens where they'll be able to see and hear the remote participants. For you in the audience, you'll just hear the audio. And if you do want to have a visual, we do have screens outside in the in the waiting area, and also this is recorded and live streamed as well.

Unknown 6:47

So with that, I think we are ready to take up our first matter, people versus Francisco. Mr. Haney, perhaps I'll invite you, since you're here, to go ahead and confirm your appearance and time estimate.

Andrew Haney 7:00

Yes, good morning, Your Honors. Deputy Attorney General Andrew Haney for the people, 15 minutes.

Unknown 7:05

Thank you very much. And I see that counsel for Mr. Francisco is appearing remotely. Good morning.

Pedro Bernal 7:11

Good morning, Your Honor. Pedro Bernal on behalf of Mr. Francisco. My estimate is 15 minutes. I believe I've reserved 12. I'm sorry, three minutes for rebuttal.

Unknown 7:20

Very good. All right. Then, Mr. Bernal, if you're ready, you may go ahead.

Pedro Bernal 7:24

Thank you, Your Honor. May it please the court. This case turns on a very narrow but critical evidentiary boundary. Child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome testimony, or CSAS for short, is admissible only to dispel misconceptions about victim behavior. and it's not designed to supply a scientific template of how molesters act or to vouch numerically or anecdotally for the complainant's credibility. In this case, the trial court allowed the prosecution's expert to do both in a case that otherwise rose and fell on credibility. Now, if we look at the rule that the courts have established, my argument essentially has two pillars. One is pigeonholing and profiling, as set forth in the Bowker case. And then we have the Lapenius case that this court held, which talks about statistics and those types of – that type of testimony.

Pedro Bernal 8:20

In Bowker, the warning that the court made was that CSAS cannot be used to construct a framework essentially that lets jurors pigeonhole the facts of the case into a syndrome and essentially infer abuse. So in this case, it's a legal limit on admissibility, and it doesn't go to the weight. So in this case, the doctor, Dr. Carmichael, talked about how perpetrators are often known, trusted, loving persons. They can be family members that a child looks up to, that the child must be around, that they may live with them, that they give special attention to, like taking them to the movies or give gifts. and then they make coercive threats in the in the prosecution's case below these specific characteristics these five or six specific characteristics were present in the case so this is what i call the balker line the prosecution's expert crossed the balker line by essentially pigeonholing

Pedro Bernal 9:18

Mr. Francisco into a framework that said, you have to believe the, uh, the, the victim in this case, because she fits all of these, uh, different points in, uh, I guess what is presented as somewhat of a scientific presentation. And this was profiling your honor. And, and just to be clear, if we, I'd like to direct the court's attention respectfully to page 19 of the respondents brief in the first full paragraph. The Attorney General essentially states that, and I'm quoting here, Dr. Carmichael's testimony that most child abusers are a trusted person in a child's life, possibly a family member who has regular access to the child, who gives the child special attention or rewards and makes coercive and aggressive threats, are all attributes that generally apply to sexual abusers.

Pedro Bernal 10:09

And that's problematic, Your Honor, because essentially the Attorney General is conceding that there was evidence of profiling, there were characteristics that