NCJ Number
131844
Journal
Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review Volume: 26 Issue: 1 Dated: (Winter 1991) Pages: 185-217
Date Published
1991
Length
33 pages
Annotation
In two recent child abuse cases, Coy v. Iowa and Maryland v. Craig, the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether trial alternatives to face-to-face confrontation comply with the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment.
Abstract
Justice Scalia's majority opinion in Coy defined confrontation as an actual physical facing of the defendant by the witness. In Maryland v. Craig, Justice O'Connor's opinion abandoned Coy's insistence on face-to-face confrontation and adopted a standard under which requirements of the confrontation clause are satisfied by three distinct trial features (oath, cross-examination, and jury's ability to observe the witness). Although the Craig opinion appeared to carve further inroads in defendant rights, the Craig majority created a potentially expansive route on which to depart from the traditional sixth amendment notion of face-to-face confrontation. Special aspects of child testimony may justify some statutes designed to protect child witnesses, but the Supreme Court unnecessarily employed a test which did not require a close fit between means and ends. Craig may not immediately extend the confrontation clause beyond the confines of trial testimony. Nonetheless, it is argued that judicial review of infringements on the sixth amendment must satisfy a heightened level of scrutiny. The Supreme Court must assess a State's purported interest in compromising constitutional rights and insist that the true interest be of an "important" nature. 122 footnotes