{"id":3008,"date":"2022-09-20T10:55:34","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T15:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/?p=3008"},"modified":"2022-09-20T10:55:34","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T15:55:34","slug":"needham-v-superior-court-of-orange-county-cal-ct-app-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/2022\/09\/20\/needham-v-superior-court-of-orange-county-cal-ct-app-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Needham v. Superior Court of Orange County (Cal. Ct. App. 2022)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"introduction-wrapper\">\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">Needham v. Superior Court of Orange County, No. G060670 (Cal. Ct. App. 2022)<\/h2>\n<p><strong><strong>Nature of Case: <\/strong><\/strong> The People filed a petition against Petitioner seeking to commit him under the Sexually Violent Predator Act (Welf. &amp; Inst. Code, \u00a7 6600 et seq.1 ) (SVPA), which authorizes\u00a0 involuntary civil commitment and treatment at the conclusion of an individual\u2019s prison term. Preparing for trial on the petition, the district attorney retained a psychological expert to evaluate Petitioner and testify at trial that he qualifies for commitment under the SVPA. Petitioner moved to exclude the expert\u2019s testimony at trial, but the trial court denied his motion.<\/p>\n<p>Petitioner now seeks a writ of mandate\/prohibition declaring that SVPA does not permit the People to call a privately retained expert to testify at trial.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Holding: <\/strong> The California Court Court of Appeals (Fourth Appellate District, Division Three), granted Petitioner\u2019s petition for a writ of mandate and directed the lower court to exclude the testimony of the People\u2019s privately retained expert witness. \u00a0In so holding, the Court noted \u201cthe detailed statutory scheme for the provision and testimony of independent experts in an SVPA proceeding\u201d and stated \u201cto permit the People to retain a testifying expert would create a possibility that an expert with a clear bias&#8211;an expert hired to support the People\u2019s view, rather than provide an independent analysis&#8211;could lead to the deprivation of a person\u2019s liberty even where some independent experts find it unwarranted, or for reasons independent experts find unconvincing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\"><em>Case Documents<\/em><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"default\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2022\/09\/Cal.-Ct.-App.-Opinion.pdf\">Cal. Ct. App. Opinion<\/a>\u00a0| view via <a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?case=211428892928091102&amp;q=Needham+v.+superior+court+of+orange+county&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6,24\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google Scholar<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>California Court of Appeals opinion holding as a matter of first impression, that the government was not entitled to call a privately retained expert witness to testify at SVPA trial as to petitioner&#8217;s mental state.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/2022\/09\/20\/needham-v-superior-court-of-orange-county-cal-ct-app-2022\/\" class=\"more-link\">Needham v. Superior Court of Orange County (Cal. Ct. App. 2022)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[102,94,281,289,290],"class_list":{"0":"post-3008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-civil-commitment-cases","7":"tag-california","8":"tag-civil-commitment","9":"tag-expert-testimony","10":"tag-independent-expert","11":"tag-svpa","12":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}