People v. Strange CA4/1

── People v. Strange CA4/1 ── Court: California Court of Appeal Date: June 03, 2026 Category: General Filed 6/3/26 P. v. Strange CA4/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION ONE STATE OF CALIFORNIA THE PEOPLE, D087347 Plaintiff and Respondent, v. (Super. Ct. No. RIF1805278) RUSSELL WARREN STRANGE, Defendant and Appellant. APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Riverside County, Steven G. Counelis, Judge. Affirmed. Wallin & Klarich and Jonathan M. Lynn for Defendant and Appellant. Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Arlene A. Sevidal, Assistant Attorney General, Collette C. Cavalier and Nora S. Weyl, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. A jury convicted Russell Warren Strange of multiple counts of lewd acts and sexual penetration with a foreign object based on his conduct with a teenage girl while serving as her high school coach and teacher. Strange appeals on multiple grounds, none of which persuades us.  First, Strange challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the guilty verdicts and the jury’s finding of substantial sexual conduct necessary to toll the statute of limitations on the lewd act counts. Despite any claimed inconsistency between the guilty and not guilty verdicts, substantial evidence supported both the convicted counts and the finding of substantial sexual conduct. Second, Strange contends the court erred in permitting an expert to testify about child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome. He claims (1) CSAAS evidence is no longer probative, as it is now “common knowledge” that victims of child sexual abuse delay disclosing their abuse; (2) the expert’s CSAAS testimony was “untethered to specific case evidence”; and (3) it violated his due process rights. We are not persuaded that CSAAS evidence should be categorically excluded, as California courts permit it under binding Supreme Court caselaw and experts are permitted to opine on a matter with which the jury might have some familiarity. And any assumed error from admitting the CSAAS evidence in this case was harmless and did not violate Strange’s right to due process. Third, Strange accuses the prosecutor of committing misconduct during closing arguments. Strange forfeited these prosecutorial misconduct claims, however, by failing to object and seek to admonish the jury during trial. He has not convinced us either objection or admonishment would have been futile, as is required to overcome forfeiture. Fourth, Strange argues a juror committed prejudicial conduct warranting a new trial when she failed to disclose her cousin’s murder on a pretrial questionnaire. We defer to the trial court’s credibility finding favoring the juror, and substantial evidence supports the trial court’s finding 2 that the juror’s omission was inadvertent. Because Strange offers no proof of actual juror bias, we discern no error. Fifth, Strange contends his expert should have been permitted to testify about Strange’s results on the Abel test, which assesses categories of sexual interest. He offers no supported basis for us to depart from existing caselaw precluding Abel test evidence in criminal cases involving sex offenses against children. Sixth and finally, Strange’s claim of cumulative error fails given the one assumed error was harmless. We therefore affirm.