People v. Trippell

California Supreme Court Oct 30, 1936 No. Crim. 3997Published

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Holding. The court held that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in finding a young child competent to testify, and that the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction because the testimony was not inherently improbable.

Issues

Whether the trial court abused its discretion in determining that a five-and-a-half-year-old child was competent to testify.
Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction despite impeachment of the witness and her mother.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“since the record does not affirmatively establish the fact that the trial judge abused his discretion in the matter, his conclusion thereon must be accepted as final and conclusive”

“unless the testimony given by the child is manifestly false or inherently improbable, a judgment that is based upon a verdict returned by a jury or a decision rendered by the trial judge against the defendant is conclusive on appeal.”

THE COURT.

A hearing was granted in this court, after decision by the District Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division One, in order to consider more fully the contentions of defendant that the prosecuting witness in this case was incompetent to testify, and that her testimony was so strongly impeached as to deserve no credence. Upon a full study of the briefs and examination of the record, we are unable to reach this conclusion. We accordingly adopt the opinion of Mr. Presiding Justice Houser, of the said District Court of Appeal, as the opinion of this court. It reads as follows:

“From a judgment of conviction on each of two counts of the offense denounced by the provisions of section 288 of the Penal Code, as well as from an order by which his motion for a new trial was denied, defendant has appealed to this court.

“ The victim of defendant's alleged felonious assault was a girl of the age of about five and one-half years. On the trial of the action, because of the extreme infancy of the child, she was questioned at length by the trial judge touching her qualifications to be sworn as a witness. It would be a waste of time to herein set forth the details of that examination. Although the question as to whether the child was really qualified as a witness may readily be one regarding which reasonable men might differ one from the other, nevertheless, since the record does not affirmatively establish the fact that the trial judge abused his discretion in the matter, his conclusion thereon must be accepted as final and conclusive;—from which it follows that the specification by appellant of prejudicial error in that regard cannot be sustained.

“ And the same principle prevails with reference to the sufficiency of the evidence to support the judgment. Judging from the ‘cold record', the testimony given by the child was most unsatisfactory. Time and again, that in im

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portant particulars in her testimony she was manifestly mistaken, was clearly established; and on each of several different occasions, if she did not admit that her testimony in some particular was false, such a conclusion was inevitable. Both she and her mother admitted that in some respects the mother had instructed the child concerning at least what she should say on her

People v. Trippell

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THE COURT.

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