State v. J.L.G.
190 A. 3d 442, 234 N.J. 265 (2018)
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Rule of Law:
Expert testimony about the Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome (CSAAS) is no longer admissible in criminal trials because it is not generally accepted as reliable within the relevant scientific community. However, expert testimony limited to the phenomenon of delayed disclosure by child abuse victims may be admitted if it is beyond the ken of the average juror and meets other requirements of the rules of evidence.
Facts:
- J.L.G. was the stepfather of the victim, 'Bonnie,' and began living with her and her mother when Bonnie was an infant.
- Beginning in 2011, when Bonnie was fourteen, J.L.G. engaged in an escalating pattern of sexual abuse for approximately eighteen months, which included forced masturbation, oral sex, digital penetration, and vaginal intercourse.
- J.L.G. often left money on Bonnie's dresser after the abuse and at one point gave her an iPhone.
- J.L.G. threatened Bonnie with a gun, warning her not to tell anyone and that he would harm her, her mother, or her brother if she did.
- On one occasion, a family friend saw J.L.G. lying on top of Bonnie with an erection. When Bonnie's mother later confronted her while holding a knife, Bonnie denied any abuse out of fear that her mother would kill J.L.G. and be imprisoned.
- In May or June of 2012, feeling she could no longer endure the abuse, Bonnie used her iPhone to make an audio recording of the final episode of sexual abuse to have proof.
- On June 13, 2012, following an argument with J.L.G., Bonnie disclosed the year-and-a-half-long abuse to her mother and attempted to play the recording, at which point J.L.G. fled the apartment.
- Under police guidance, Bonnie later made recorded phone calls to J.L.G., during which he apologized and offered her money and a car to withdraw her allegations.
Procedural Posture:
- A grand jury indicted J.L.G. in a Hudson County trial court.
- J.L.G. filed a pretrial motion to exclude the State's expert testimony regarding CSAAS, which the trial court denied.
- At trial, the State's expert testified about CSAAS, and a jury subsequently convicted J.L.G. on four counts.
- J.L.G. appealed to the Appellate Division, arguing, among other things, that the CSAAS testimony was improperly admitted.
- The Appellate Division affirmed the convictions, reasoning that the admissibility of CSAAS testimony was well-settled law under State v. J.Q.
- The Supreme Court of New Jersey granted J.L.G.'s petition for certification, limited to the issue of the admissibility of CSAAS testimony.
- Finding the record inadequate, the Supreme Court remanded the case to the trial court for a special hearing to determine whether CSAAS evidence meets the scientific reliability standard of N.J.R.E. 702.
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Issue:
Does expert testimony about the Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome (CSAAS) meet the reliability standard for admissibility in criminal trials under N.J.R.E. 702?
Opinions:
Majority - Chief Justice Rabner
No, expert testimony about the Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome (CSAAS) does not meet the reliability standard for admissibility. The theory is no longer considered generally accepted within the scientific community and, with the exception of the 'delayed disclosure' component, cannot be the subject of expert testimony in criminal trials. The Court re-evaluated its 1993 precedent in State v. J.Q. based on a remand hearing that included testimony from four experts and a review of modern scientific literature. Applying the Frye standard, which requires 'general acceptance in the particular field,' the Court found that CSAAS as a multi-part 'syndrome' lacks empirical validation. The Court analyzed each of the five components and found that only delayed disclosure has consistent and long-standing scientific support. The other components—secrecy, helplessness, accommodation, and retraction—were found to be either imprecise, self-evident, too broad to be scientifically useful, or lacking scientific consensus. While expert testimony on delayed disclosure may be admissible, it must also satisfy N.J.R.E. 702's requirement that the topic be 'beyond the ken of the average juror,' which depends on the facts of each case. In this case, the admission of CSAAS testimony was an error, but it was deemed harmless due to the overwhelming evidence of J.L.G.'s guilt, which included a graphic audio recording of an act of sexual abuse.
Analysis:
This decision represents a significant retreat from established precedent in New Jersey, overturning the 25-year-old ruling in State v. J.Q. that had permitted CSAAS testimony. By invalidating the broader CSAAS theory as unreliable, the Court has heightened the evidentiary standard for admitting psychological expert testimony in child sexual abuse cases. The ruling narrows the scope of permissible expert testimony to the single, empirically supported phenomenon of delayed disclosure, and even then, only on a case-by-case basis where the victim's reasons for delay are not easily understood by a jury. This will likely reduce the frequency of expert testimony in such trials and require prosecutors to rely more heavily on the victim's own testimony and corroborating evidence to explain their behavior to the jury.
