In Re Christine C.

191 Cal.App.3d 676 (1987) 236 Cal. Rptr. 630 In re CHRISTINE C. et al., Persons Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.

MARIN COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

JOHN C., Defendant and Appellant.

Docket No. A027247. Court of Appeals of California, First District, Division Five.

April 29, 1987. [678] COUNSEL

Peter E. Mitchell and Nelson, Boyd, MacDonald, Mitchell, Mason & Hedin for Defendant and Appellant.

Douglas J. Maloney, County Counsel, and Ruth W. Rosen, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

[Opinion certified for partial publication.[*]]

OPINION

KING, J.

This case presents the same issue as in In re Amber B., post, page 682 [236 Cal. Rptr. 623] whether the trial court erred in admitting expert opinion testimony that appellant had committed child sexual abuse. We conclude the court erred, but the error was harmless.

John C. appeals from an order declaring his twin children Christine and Michael to be dependent children of the juvenile court (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 300). We affirm.

Two separate petitions, filed by the Marin County Department of Social Services and later amended to conform to proof, alleged that John had sexually molested Christine and Michael when they were three years old. At the hearing on the petitions the department presented testimony by a psychiatrist, Dr. David Corwin, who had examined the children on one occasion. Over John's objection the court permitted Dr. Corwin to testify he believed the twins' claims that John had molested them.

Dr. Corwin's conclusion was based primarily on "what the children told me" and "the way in which they told me." Specifically, he relied on the consistency of their reports of abuse and the manner in which they reported the abuse, their demonstrations of emotion during the interview, the absence of any deprecation of their father, their demonstrated ability to discriminate between events that did or did not occur, their behavior with anatomically correct dolls, and the general "air of realism" in their assertions.