Opinion ID: 2525436
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: testimony of j.w. and c.w.

Text: ¶ 28 Prior to trial, the State filed a notice of intent to call seven-year-old J.W. and six-year-old C.W. as witnesses and requested that their testimony be allowed through closed-circuit television, pursuant to rule 15.5 of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure. After defendant objected to the closed-circuit procedure, the trial court appointed an expert, Dr. Kevin Gully, to evaluate the two minor children and make a determination about the effects of their testifying in court. After holding an evidentiary hearing, the trial court found that the children would suffer serious emotional distress and that their testimony would be inherently unreliable if required to testify in the presence of defendant and Travis. Therefore, the court allowed the children's testimony to be conducted via closed-circuit television. ¶ 29 Among other things, both J.W. and C.W. testified at trial that their mother had previously hit each of them with a belt. After the children's testimony, defendant sought to introduce transcripts of interviews with J.W. and C.W. conducted soon after Breanna's death. Defendant argued that the complete interviews were admissible as prior inconsistent statements of J.W. and C.W. The trial court, after reviewing the audio tapes and transcripts, ruled that the statements in the transcripts were not inconsistent but were cumulative of the children's testimony and excluded them. Instead, the court allowed defendant to examine the two detectives who interviewed the children regarding any statements that were inconsistent with the children's testimony.