Rodgers

Defendant Willie Rodgers appeals from a judgment based upon a jury’s verdicts convicting him of forcible oral copulation (Pen. Code, § 288a) and burglary (Pen. Code, § 459).

We summarize the relevant evidence as it was presented at the trial.

The victim of the charged offenses was one Olivia, a 17-year-old emotionally disturbed black girl who was undergoing treatment at a publicly operated rehabilitation center. Rodgers, a black man well-known to Olivia, was employed by the center as a houseparent of a residential unit occupied by emotionally disturbed boys. Olivia had been assigned to a room of a “co-ed” unit some distance away. One evening while she was heavily medicated a black man entered her room and forced her to copulate his penis. The female houseparent of the unit observed Rodgers leaving the unit from the direction of Olivia’s room. Soon after, the door of Olivia’s room opened and she exclaimed that she had been “raped.” She could not, or at least did not, identify her attacker. When her houseparent suggested that it was “Sonny” (the nickname by which Rodgers was known) Olivia replied, “Oh no, not Sonny. We’re so tight.” A police investigation disclosed…