People v. L.F. CA4/2

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Prior to trial, defendant moved to exclude testimony about the contents of the

hospital records, or Interdisciplinary Notes, upon which the prosecution expert witnesses

relied. The Interdisciplinary Notes consisted of 13 (out of 545) pages of handwritten

notations by staff members at Patton concerning defendant’s behaviors, statements, and

well-being. Outside the presence of the jury, the attorneys argued about admissibility and

whether the jury should be able to consider the Interdisciplinary Notes as evidence.

Defense counsel asserted that the prosecution had not laid and would not be able to lay

the appropriate foundation to admit the Interdisciplinary Notes, and that the

Interdisciplinary Notes alone were unreliable. When asked to identify which specific

notes were objectionable, defense counsel maintained that she was “objecting to all of

them” because the records were inadmissible hearsay lacking a foundation. In response,

2 the prosecutor argued that her experts could rely upon the Interdisciplinary Notes

regardless of whether they were admissible, but agreed that a foundation was necessary

for their admission. Nonetheless, she…