People v. Superior Court (Caudle)

The People seek mandate to reverse trial court orders (1) sustaining defendant’s demurrer to the information and then, after the filing of an amended information, (2) dismissing all but two counts of the one hundred forty-five-count amended information. The dismissal order under Penal Code section 995 is reviewable on writ by the People. (E,g. People v. Superior Court (Day) (1985) 174 Cal.App.3d 1008 [ 220 Cal.Rptr. 330 ].) The ruling on the demurrer has been mooted by the filing of an amended information, but the issues raised by both rulings overlap and shall therefore be discussed together.

The allegations typify the case as one sometimes referred to as a “resident child molester” case. (See People v. Van Hoek (1988) 200 Cal.App.3d 811, 814, fn. 1 [ 246 Cal.Rptr. 352 ].) The fact pattern these cases often present is that the defendant has lived in the same residence as the child victim over a long period of time, and is accused of frequent or routine molestation during that period, but the child cannot remember the exact dates and places the molestation occurred. The due process concerns raised by this factual pattern are (1) the sufficiency of the notice of offenses…