Collins

There is presently pending in respondent court a proceeding pursuant to former Welfare and Institutions Code section 600, subdivision (d), 1 to declare the infant Ajamu Swaggart a dependent of the juvenile court. Petitioners La Ronda Collins and Steven Swaggart are the indigent parents of the infant. That proceeding was initiated by the Department of Public Social Services with the juvenile court on behálf of the infant minor who was then three months old. It is alleged that baby Ajamu was hospitalized “as a result of physical abuse. Injuries resultant from that abuse are: numerous fractured ribs on both sides, bruised right scrotum and penis, hardening of right testicle, indicating further injury or old blood collected in the scrotum. Mother’s explanation of how injuries occurred is not consistant [s/c] with medical findings. Further x-rays also showed an old fracture at lower end of minor’s tibia.” Respondent appointed counsel for petitioners pursuant to former section 634 of the Welfare and Institutions Code. 2 Said counsel moved for appointment of a medical expert pursuant to sections 730 and 952 3 of the *51 Evidence Code. In support of this motion counsel submitted…

The interests involved in a dependency proceeding—the right of a child to be free of parental abuse, the duty of the state to protect children from abuse, the right of a child to the care, custody and protection of its parents if they are not abusive, the right of nonabusive parents to the custody of their children—touch the veiy core of our society’s structure and its value system. The particular issue involved in the present proceeding, however, is a very narrow one. That issue is simply this:

Whether indigent parents who demonstrate a need for a medical expert to assist them in the preparation of a defense in a child dependency proceeding have a right to preserve the confidentiality of communications between themselves, their counsel and a court-appointed medical expert to the same extent as nonindigent parents would have vis-a-vis a privately retained medical expert in a similar proceeding. I would hold that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution compels an affirmative answer to this question.

This principle has already been established with respect to criminal prosecutions. (Torres v. Municipal Court (1975) 50 Cal.App.3d…

John H. Larson, County Counsel, and Sterling R. Honea, Deputy County Counsel, for Real Party in Interest.

OPINION

ASHBY, J.

There is presently pending in respondent court a proceeding pursuant to former Welfare and Institutions Code section 600, subdivision (d), [1] to declare the infant Ajamu Swaggart a dependent of the juvenile court. Petitioners La Ronda Collins and Steven Swaggart are the indigent parents of the infant. That proceeding was initiated by the Department of Public Social Services with the juvenile court on behalf of the infant minor who was then three months old. It is alleged that baby Ajamu was hospitalized "as a result of physical abuse. Injuries resultant from that abuse are: numerous fractured ribs on both sides, bruised right scrotum and penis, hardening of right testicle, indicating further injury or old blood collected in the scrotum. Mother's explanation of how injuries occurred is not consistent [ sic ] with medical findings. Further x-rays also showed an old fracture at lower end of minor's tibia." Respondent appointed counsel for petitioners pursuant to former section 634 of the Welfare and Institutions Code. [2] Said counsel moved for appointment…