[DOWNLOAD] "People V. Johnson" by California Supreme Court # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: People V. Johnson
- Author : California Supreme Court
- Release Date : January 17, 2002
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 62 KB
Description
Penal Code section 288.5 defines the crime of continuous sexual abuse of a child. Any person who either resides in the same home with a minor child or has recurring access to the child, who over a period of time, not less than three months in duration, engages in three or more acts of substantial sexual conduct with the child or three or more acts of lewd or lascivious conduct, is guilty of the offense of continuous sexual abuse. (Pen. Code, § 288.5, subd. (a); see id., §§ 1203.066, subd. (b) [defining substantial sexual conduct], 288, subd. (a) [defining lewd or lascivious conduct]; further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise specified.) Enacted in 1989, section 288.5 was aimed at solving a recurrent problem in the prosecution of so-called resident child molesters: Because of the age of the victim and the repeated and continual nature of the offenses, trial testimony often failed to identify with specificity the date or place of particular charged acts, and the defense's ability to respond to specific charges arguably was impaired. A line of Court of Appeal decisions beginning with People v. Van Hoek (1988) 200 Cal.App.3d 811 (Van Hoek) reversed convictions obtained through the use of such "generic" testimony, concluding that the inability to effectively defend against such charges deprived defendants of due process and that such proceedings improperly compromised the constitutional guarantee of jury unanimity. (E.g., People v. Vargas (1988) 206 Cal.App.3d 831, 845-847; People v. Luna (1988) 204 Cal.App.3d 726, 738-749; People v. Atkins (1988) 203 Cal.App.3d 15, 19-23; Van Hoek, supra, at pp. 814-818.) *fn1