C.A. 4th;
D069298

The Fourth Appellate District reversed a judgment. The court held that the trial court erred prejudicially in allowing the victim's handwritten “timeline” of alleged sexual abuse to be displayed for the jury, and relied on in questioning and closing argument.

Michael Vasquez was tried before a jury in 2015 for multiple acts of lewd and lascivious conduct committed some 10 years earlier against siblings E.C. and P.C. P.C., who testified at trial, was five or six years old when the abuse occurred. To aid P.C.'s testimony, the prosecutor displayed an approximately twenty-foot long paper “timeline” of the alleged molestations that a therapist created with P.C. in preparation for a prior proceeding in the case. The timeline contained detailed statements describing the alleged abuse written by the therapist at P.C.'s direction, together with dates and photographs of P.C. at various ages. The prosecutor questioned P.C. about statements contained on the timeline. In closing, the prosecutor displayed the timeline for the jury and urged the jury to rely on it in finding Vasquez guilty, repeatedly stating that everything P.C. alleged was written down “right here.” The jury found Vasquez guilty.