Drop v. Allen

Background

Robert Drop was convicted in state court of several sexual offenses involving his stepdaughter, J.D. The state trial court admitted testimony from Dr. Blake Carmichael about child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome, or CSAAS. The testimony concerned reasons children may delay reporting abuse and may give inconsistent accounts after disclosing it.

The trial court instructed the jury under CALCRIM No. 1193 that it could consider the CSAAS evidence only in deciding whether J.D.’s conduct was not inconsistent with the conduct of someone who had been molested and in evaluating the believability of her testimony. The instruction also stated that the evidence was not proof that Drop committed any charged crime.

The California Court of Appeal affirmed Drop’s conviction, and the California Supreme Court denied review. Drop then filed this federal habeas petition asserting three claims. The court previously dismissed claims one and three because he had not exhausted them in state court. Drop chose to proceed only with claim two, which challenged CALCRIM No. 1193.

Legal standard

Under the federal habeas statute, a federal court may grant relief from a state-court conviction only if the state court’s decision was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, or was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. The federal court may not grant relief merely because it believes the state court was incorrect; the state court’s decision must have been objectively unreasonable under the governing federal law.

Analysis

Drop argued that the instruction improperly bolstered J.D.’s credibility and reduced the prosecution’s burden of proof. The court rejected that argument. It explained that CALCRIM No. 1193 did not tell the jury to use CSAAS evidence as proof that Drop committed the crimes. Instead, the instruction limited the evidence to evaluating J.D.’s conduct and credibility. The court also noted that Dr. Carmichael described CSAAS as an educational tool for dispelling misconceptions, not as a diagnostic method for proving abuse, and that the prosecutor told the jury that deciding whether J.D. had been molested was the jury’s responsibility.

The court also rejected Drop’s argument that the instruction was unconstitutionally confusing. The California Court of Appeal had interpreted the instruction to mean that the jury could use the evidence to understand that J.D.’s behavior did not necessarily show that she had lied, but could not use the evidence to conclude that she had in fact been molested. The federal court stated that it was bound by the state court’s interpretation of the state-law instruction and concluded that the state court’s decision was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of established federal law.

Finally, the court held that even assuming the instruction was erroneous, Drop was not entitled to habeas relief because the instruction did not have a substantial and injurious effect on the verdict. The court cited testimony from J.D., her mother, two domestic-violence-center employees, J.D.’s friend, and J.D.’s brother as significant evidence supporting the conviction. Given that evidence from witnesses other than J.D., the court concluded that the instruction had not so affected the trial that the conviction violated due process.

Disposition

The court DENIED Drop’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The court also declined to issue a certificate of appealability because Drop had not made the required substantial showing that his constitutional rights were denied.