Law Commons^™

The History Of Children's Hearsay: From Old Bailey To Post-Davis, Thomas D. Lyon, Raymond Lamagna

Thomas D. Lyon

The papers in this symposium were originally prepared for the Section on Evidence of the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools.

Idaho V. Wright: Who Can Speak For The Children Now?, Laura Barker

Akron Law Review

This note discusses how the Court reached the decision in Idaho v. Wright to exclude the hearsay testimony of a child abuse victim. The note examines the Court's reasoning and the effects which the exclusion of hearsay testimony of child abuse victims may have on future prosecutions. The note concludes that the Court's decision is likely to add chaos into the already difficult and complex arena of child abuse prosecution.

Appellate Division, Third Department, People V. Young, Randy S. Pearlman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Recent Development: Hailes V. State: The State May Appeal A Trial Court's Ruling Excluding A Dying Declaration; The Length Of Time Between A Declarant's Statement And Death Is Irrelevant In A Dying Declaration Analysis; The Confrontation Clause Is Inapplicable To Dying Declarations, Lauren A. Panfile

University of Baltimore Law Forum

The Court of Appeals of Maryland held that the State may appeal a trial court’s suppression of a victim’s dying declaration based on the legislative intent of Section 12-302(c)(4)(i) of the Maryland Code, Courts and Judicial Procedure Article (“section 12-302(c)(4)(i)”). Hailes v. State, 442 Md. 488, 497-98, 113 A.3d 608, 613-14 (2015). The court further held that a victim’s statement, made while on life support, was a dying declaration regardless of the fact that the victim died two years after making the statement. Id. at 506, 113 A.3d at 618. Finally, the court held that the Confrontation Clause of the …

Unwrapping The Box The Supreme Court Justices Have Gotten Themselves Into: Internal Confrontations Over Confronting The Confrontation Clause, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Williams v. Illinois, handed down in 2012, is the latest in a new and revolutionary line of U.S. Supreme Court cases beginning with the 2004 decision of Crawford v. Washington which radically altered the Court's former approach to the Constitutional Confrontation Clause. That clause generally requires persons who make written or oral statements outside the trial, that may constitute evidence against a criminal defendant, to take the witness stand for cross-examination rather than those statements being presented at the trial only by the writing or by another person who heard the statement.

Previous to Crawford, under Ohio v. …

Ambiguous-Purpose Statements Of Children And Other Victims Of Abuse Under The Confrontation Clause, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author examines in this paper two kinds of ambiguous-purpose out-of-court statements that are especially problematic under current Confrontation law--problematic in ways that we hope will be solved directly or indirectly by the Supreme Court when it renders its decision in Ohio v. Clark. The statements he examines are:

(1) Statements made by abused children concerning their abuse, for example to police, physicians, teachers, welfare workers, baby sitters, or family members, some of whom may be under a legal duty to report suspected abuse to legal authorities. At least some of these statements will be directly addressed by the …

Confronting Legal And Technological Incongruity: Remote Testimony For Child Witnesses, Elizabeth A. Mulkey

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Child victims are often the only eyewitnesses in cases against their abusers. A child's testimony may be necessary for a prosecutor to secure a conviction. However, the child must often face his or her abuser and relive the traumatic experience while giving this testimony. Any accommodations or protection of a child witness at trial must be balanced against the defendant's rights under the Confrontation Clause. The Supreme Court's decision in Maryland v. Craig allows child victims to testify via one-way, closed-circuit television in some circumstances, but the Court has not addressed two-way, closed-circuit testimony or remote testimony. In the absence …

The Child Quasi-Witness, Richard D. Friedman, Stephen J. Ceci

Articles

This Essay provides a solution to the conundrum of statements made by very young children and offered against an accused in a criminal prosecution. Currently prevailing doctrine allows one of three basic outcomes. First, in some cases the child testifies at trial. But this is not always feasible, and when it is, cross-examination is a poor method for determining the truth. Second, evidence of the child's statement may be excluded, which denies the adjudicative process of potentially valuable information. Third, the evidence may be admitted without the child testifying at trial, which leaves the accused with no practical ability to …