AB 419

This bill prohibits a court from ordering a witness or a victim, as a condition of

allowing testimony in a criminal case involving sexual assault or repeated sexual

assault of a child, sexual assault, or other criminal acts that are sexually motivated,

to submit to a mental examination to assess his or her credibility. This bill also

generally prohibits a defendant from compelling a crime victim to a pretrial

interview or deposition.

Current law provides for compensation to victims of certain crimes and to

health providers who perform certain procedures on victims of a sex offense. The

Department of Justice designs forms for persons applying for compensation. This

bill makes any personally identifiable information about the victim on the form

confidential and not a public record.

Generally, evidence that has the tendency to make the existence of a fact more

probable or less probable (relevant evidence) is admissible in a court action that

involves the issues concerning that fact. Some relevant evidence is excluded from

admission if it creates unfair prejudice, confuses the issues, misleads the jury, or is

repetitious of other evidence. Some relevant evidence, such as the test for the

presence of HIV, is not admissible as evidence to prove a person's character. Some

relevant evidence is not admissible unless the collection of that evidence is done

under certain protocols or by certain persons certified to collect that evidence, such

as the presence of lead in dust.

This bill prohibits, in any civil action seeking damages, the admission of

evidence concerning the sexual conduct of a person who has been the victim of certain

criminal acts, including sexual assault, sexual exploitation by a therapist, and

sexual crimes against children if that evidence is offered to prove the victim engaged

in other sexual conduct or to prove the victim's sexual predisposition. This

prohibition does not apply to evidence of consensual sexual conduct between the

victim and the alleged offender or to evidence of sexual conduct that resulted in the

victim's damages if that evidence is first shown to the court in the judge's chambers

to be related to the victim's damages.