Legislative Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Cases: The Hearsay Exception and the Videotape Deposition

• NCJ Number: 110074
• Journal: Catholic University Law Review Volume: 34 Issue: 4 Dated: (Summer 1985) Pages: 1021-1054
• Author(s): J Kelly
• Date Published: 1985
• Length: 34 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article details the problems inherent in introducing evidence provided by the child victim when prosecuting child sexual abuse cases.

Abstract

Even though only one State mandates corroboration of a sex offense involving a minor, most prosecutors believe corroboration is necessary to obtain a conviction or to avoid a judgment of acquittal for insufficient evidence. Because corroboration is often lacking and a child is unable over a prolonged period to remember or to articulate the story of sexual abuse, prosecutors try to find an alternative to the child's in-court testimony. Prosecutors who decide not to bring the child victim into court to testify may use one of two methods to introduce the child's account of the sexual abuse. First, prosecutors may seek to introduce, under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule, the out-of-court statement of the child when first revealing the event to an adult. Second, prosecutors may videotape the child's deposition and preserve it for introduction at trial instead of the child's in-court testimony. Several State legislatures, recognizing the difficulties in prosecuting child sexual abuse cases, have authorized prosecutors to use one or both of these methods. The article examines statutory alternatives to the child victim's in-court testimony of sexual abuse. The alternatives are examined for their capacity to reduce psychological trauma for the victim and to result in more reliable testimony. The author argues that the current excited utterance hearsay exception, as interpreted by the courts, is inadequate in many cases in covering the statements of the child victims. The author examines videotape child deposition statutes in light of the defendant's sixth amendment right to cross examine witnesses and concludes that the adversary system needs modification to accommodate the child witness. 211 footnotes.