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Full-Text Articles in Juvenile Law
The Child Quasi-Witness, Richard D. Friedman, Stephen J. Ceci
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 …
Still "Left In The Dark": The Confrontation Clause And Child Abuse Cases After Davis V. Washington, Anthony J. Franze, Jacob E. Smiles
Still "Left In The Dark": The Confrontation Clause And Child Abuse Cases After Davis V. Washington, Anthony J. Franze, Jacob E. Smiles
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
In his concurring opinion in Crawford v. Washington, Chief Justice Rehnquist criticized the majority for holding that the Confrontation Clause applies to “testimonial” statements but leaving for “another day” any effort to define sufficiently what “testimonial” means. Prosecutors and defendants, he said, “should not be left in the dark in this manner.” Over the next two years, both sides grappled with the meaning of testimonial, each gleaning import from sections of Crawford that seemingly proved their test was the right one. When the Court granted certiorari in Davis v. Washington and Hammon v. Indiana (hereinafter Davis), hopes were high that …
The Conundrum Of Children, Confrontation, And Hearsay, Richard D. Friedman
The Conundrum Of Children, Confrontation, And Hearsay, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
The adjudication of child abuse claims poses an excruciatingly difficult conundrum. The crime is a terrible one, but false convictions are abhorrent. Often the evidence does not support a finding of guilt or innocence with sufficient clarity to allow a decision free of gnawing doubt. In many cases, a large part of the problem is that the prosecution's case depends critically on the statement or testimony of a young child. Even with respect to adult witnesses, the law of hearsay and confrontation is very perplexing, as anyone who has studied American evidentiary law and read Supreme Court opinions on the …