NCJ Number
143440
Date Published
1992
Length
31 pages
Annotation
This document lists State legislation, current through 1991, regarding statutory hearsay exceptions for child witnesses involved in criminal child abuse cases.
Abstract
Each statute annotation includes the crimes specifically listed in the statute, age of the victim as specified, applicability to victim or witness, criteria for admissibility, criteria for unavailability, factors to consider in determining trustworthiness, and special issues. The summary also notes whether an appropriate court has ruled on the statute's constitutionality. These State laws must be read in light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Idaho v. Wright, in which it ruled that a child's hearsay statements cannot be deemed to be per se unreliable and inadmissible as evidence. The court basically followed the two-prong test for hearsay established in Ohio v. Roberts, which requires the prosecution to either produce or demonstrate the unavailability of the declarant whose statement it wishes to use against the defendant, and requires the statement to bear adequate "indicia of reliability." Since child hearsay is not a firmly rooted hearsay exception, the prosecution must show that the statement has "particularized guarantees of trustworthiness."