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"Sweet Childish Days": Using Developmental Psychology Research In Evaluating The Admissibility Of Out-Of-Court Statements By Young Children, Lynn Mclain
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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 …
Post-Crawford: Time To Liberalize The Substantive Admissibility Of A Testifying Witness's Prior Consistent Statements, Lynn Mclain
Post-Crawford: Time To Liberalize The Substantive Admissibility Of A Testifying Witness's Prior Consistent Statements, Lynn Mclain
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The United States Supreme Court's 1995 decision in Tome v. United States has read Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(1)(B) to prevent the prosecution's offering a child abuse victim's prior consistent statements as substantive evidence. As a result of that decision, the statements will also be inadmissible even for the limited purpose of helping to evaluate the credibility of a child, if there is a serious risk that the out-of-court statements would be used on the issue of guilt or innocence.
Moreover, after the Court's March 2004 decision in Crawford v. Washington, which redesigned the landscape of Confrontation Clause analysis, other …
No Magic Formula: A New Approach For Calculating The Ten Year Time Period For Admission Of Prior Conviction Evidence, Amy E. Sloan
No Magic Formula: A New Approach For Calculating The Ten Year Time Period For Admission Of Prior Conviction Evidence, Amy E. Sloan
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Federal Rule of Evidence (FRE) 609 governs admission of prior conviction evidence. Under this rule, it is easier to admit evidence of a prior conviction that is less than ten years old than to admit evidence of older convictions. The ten year period is measured from the later of either the date of conviction or the date of release from confinement.
Calculating the ten year period is fairly straightforward in most cases but becomes confusing when the witness has been confined for violating the terms of probation, parole, or some other period of conditional release. Does the confinement for violation …
The Doctrine Of Inevitable Discovery: A Plea For Reasonable Limitations, Steven P. Grossman
The Doctrine Of Inevitable Discovery: A Plea For Reasonable Limitations, Steven P. Grossman
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In reinstating the Iowa murder conviction of Robert Williams, the Supreme Court accepted explicitly for the first time the doctrine of inevitable discovery. Applied for some time by state and federal courts, the doctrine of inevitable discovery is a means by which evidence obtained illegally can still be admitted against defendants in criminal cases. Unfortunately, the Court chose to adopt the doctrine without any of the safeguards necessary to insure that the deterrent impact of the exclusionary rule would be preserved, and in a form that is subject to and almost invites abuse.
This article warns of the danger to …