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Children's Testimony In Sexual Abuse Cases: Ohio's Proposed Legislation, Deborah Mahusky

Akron Law Review

Legislatures are attempting to reduce the trauma to the child, and, at the same time, to increase convictions.

This legislation is often in the form of permitting videotaped pretrial statements and depositions to be admitted into evidence. Additionally, some legislatures are permitting testimony of the child at depositions or at trial to take place in a separate room from the defendant, the judge, the jury and the general public through the use of closed circuit television or monitors. However, this legislation may present an encroachment of sixth amendment guarantees.

Section I of this comment will discuss whether or not the …

5. American Professional Society On The Abuse Of Children In Support Of Petitioner, Ohio V. Clark (Merits), Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

"Sweet Childish Days": Using Developmental Psychology Research In Evaluating The Admissibility Of Out-Of-Court Statements By Young Children, Lynn Mclain

All Faculty Scholarship

A three-year-old child, while being bathed by her babysitter, innocently mentions that her “pee-pee” hurts. When the babysitter asks the child how she hurt it, she says, “Uncle Ernie (her mother’s boyfriend) told me not to tell.” A subsequent medical examination reveals that the child has gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease.

By the time of trial, the child is four and-a-half-years old. When questioned by the trial judge, she cannot explain to the judge’s satisfaction, “the difference between the truth and a lie.” Moreover, she has no long term memory of the incident. The judge rules the child incompetent to …

Child Testimony Via Two-Way Closed Circuit Television: A New Perspective On Maryland V. Craig In United States V. Turning Bear And United States V. Bordeaux, Aaron R. Harmon

Aaron R. Harmon

Published as “Child Testimony via Two-Way Closed Circuit Television: A New Perspective on Maryland v. Craig in United States v. Turning Bear and United States v. Bordeaux,” 7 N.C. J.L. & Tech. 157 (Fall 2005). For Confrontation Clause purposes, child testimony by two-way closed circuit television is substantively different from one-way closed circuit television. Two-way closed circuit testimony is preferable because it more closely approximates face-to-face confrontation. The Supreme Court’s case-specific holding in Maryland v. Craig was directed at one-way closed circuit testimony. As such, the Eighth Circuit was mistaken in conflating the two forms of testimony when it relied …