People v. Jackson

After a jury trial, defendant appeals from a judgment of conviction of Penal Code, section 273a and section 273d (child beating).

The defendant’s first contention is that the court committed prejudicial error in allowing the testimony of a doctor concerning the “battered child syndrome.” An obvious answer to this contention is that no objection was made to this testimony. However, since it appears that under present procedures, appellate review is endless and if we dispose of the matter on that basis, we can realistically anticipate a collateral attack in which the defendant’s appellate counsel is charged with inadequacy because of failure to charge trial counsel with inadequacy because the trial counsel failed to make the objection. Therefore, pragmatically, and since the problem has not before been presented on an appellate court level, we will discuss the contention.

Jo Anne Blanton lived with the defendant and had a 13-month-old child by him. One day she left the child with him while she went to work and when she returned in the evening, the child had burns and water blisters on his body. The defendant said something like “before you see him . . . don’t get shook,”…