Jurisprudence Commons^™

Parent-Child Privilege: Constitutional Right Or Specious Analogy?, Donald Cofer

Seattle University Law Review

To avoid reaching incorrect verdicts as a result of insufficient evidence, courts generally require witnesses to testify to all relevant facts within their knowledge. Two important exceptions to this general rule, incompetency and privilege, rest on very different rationales. Developed at common law to exclude unreliable evidence, rules of competency disqualify certain untrustworthy witnesses from testifying. To promote extrinsic public policies, however, privileges excuse competent witnesses from providing what may be highly probative and reliable evidence. In the past decade there have been calls for legislative or judicial recognition of a parent-child privilege, similar to the marital privilege, that would …