Opinion ID: 2057494
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Coy v. Iowa

Text: The United States Supreme Court recently addressed a provision of the Iowa child shield statute in Coy v. Iowa (1988), 487 U.S. 1012, 101 L.Ed.2d 857, 108 S.Ct. 2798. In Coy, the defendant was charged with sexually assaulting two 13-year-old girls. Pursuant to statute, the trial court, upon the State's motion, approved the use of a large screen to be placed between the defendant and the witness stand during the girls' testimony. (Iowa Code § 910A.14 (1987).) After certain lighting adjustments were made in the courtroom, the screen enabled defendant dimly to perceive the witnesses, but the witnesses could not see defendant at all. At issue in Coy was not the right to cross-examination, which the Court stated was an implicit right of the confrontation clause, but rather the right to face-to-face confrontation, a right explicitly set forth in the confrontation clause. (487 U.S. at 1019-20, 101 L.Ed.2d at 866, 108 S.Ct. at 2802.) The Court held that the use of the screen was unconstitutional, stating that [i]t is difficult to imagine a more obvious or damaging violation of the defendant's right to a face-to-face encounter. 487 U.S. at 1020, 101 L.Ed.2d at 866, 108 S.Ct. at 2802. The Court expressly left open the question whether any exceptions to the right to face-to-face confrontation exist. (487 U.S. at 1021, 101 L.Ed.2d at 866, 108 S.Ct. at 2803.) If any exceptions exist, they would be allowed only when necessary to further an important public policy. The State in Coy argued that such necessity was established by the statute itself, which created a legislatively imposed presumption of trauma. The Court rejected the notion that such a generalized finding of necessity is sufficient to justify an exception to the defendant's constitutional right to face-to-face confrontation, at least where the exception is not firmly rooted in the Court's jurisprudence. The exception created by the new Iowa statute, the Court noted, certainly is not a firmly rooted exception. The Court concluded that since there were no individualized findings that these particular witnesses needed special protection, the judgment here could not be sustained by any conceivable exception. 487 U.S. at 1021, 101 L.Ed.2d at 867, 108 S.Ct. at 2803. Since Coy was decided, several States have addressed their child shield statutes. Compare Arizona v. Vincent (Ariz. 1989), 768 P.2d 150 ( en banc ) (upholding constitutionality of videotape statute, although reversing conviction on ground statute was unconstitutionally applied); Perez v. State (Fla. 1988), 536 So.2d 206 (hearsay statute upheld); Glendening v. State (Fla. 1988), 536 So.2d 212 (application of hearsay statute, in conjunction with videotape statute, held constitutional); State v. Davis (1988), 229 N.J. Super. 66, 550 A.2d 1241 (closed circuit television procedure upheld); Craig v. State (1988), 76 Md. App. 250, 544 A.2d 784 (same), cert. granted (1988), 314 Md. 458, 550 A.2d 1168, with State v. Eastham (1988), 39 Ohio St.3d 307, 530 N.E.2d 409 (closed circuit television procedure held unconstitutional in the absence of particularized findings concerning necessity of procedure); see also Lam v. State (8th Cir.1988), 860 F.2d 873 (in burglary prosecution, admission of videotaped testimony of victim held unconstitutional where reason for victim's absence from trial was a vacation trip; error held harmless). However, the foregoing decisions, as well as others decided prior to Coy (see, e.g., State v. Johnson (1986), 240 Kan. 326, 729 P.2d 1169 (upholding videotape statute); Commonwealth v. Willis (Ky. 1986), 716 S.W.2d 224 (upholding statute authorizing use of videotape or closed circuit television)), provide us with little guidance because the statutes at issue, and the constitutional right implicated, differ from the situation presented by the case at bar. The salient features of the videotape statutes at issue in Glendening and Vincent, which are typical of the statutes adopted by most States that have this type of statute, are as follows. The videotaped testimony of the witness is admissible at trial in lieu of the live testimony of the witness; the defendant must be given an opportunity to cross-examine the witness during the videotaping; and the defendant is able to view the videotaping and hear the child witness, but the defendant is not in the same room with the witness. Thus the constitutional right implicated when this procedure is employed is the right to face-to-face confrontation. After Coy, it is clear that such a procedure, which shields the child witness from facing the defendant during the testimony, is constitutionally acceptable, if at all, only if there is an individualized finding that the witness is in need of such protection. (See Coy, 487 U.S. at 1021, 101 L.Ed.2d at 867, 108 S.Ct. at 2803.) The Florida statute at issue in Glendening expressly requires that the court make such a finding. (See Glendening, 536 So.2d at 215-16.) The supreme court of Arizona in Vincent construed the Arizona statute as requiring such a finding, holding that the State must show that face-to-face testimony would so traumatize a child witness as to prevent the child from reasonably communicating. The court further held that such a finding is equivalent to a finding of unavailability within the meaning of Ohio v. Roberts (1980), 448 U.S. 56, 65 L.Ed.2d 597, 100 S.Ct. 2531, and justifies the use of the videotaped testimony in lieu of live testimony at trial. Vincent, 768 P.2d at 164. The Illinois statute differs from the Florida and Arizona statutes in the following ways. Under our statute, the videotaped testimony is admissible only if the witness is available to testify at trial; the defendant is not permitted to cross-examine the witness during the videotaping, but must be permitted to do so at the trial; and during the videotaping, the witness and the defendant are physically present in the same room and can see and hear each other. Thus the right implicated under our statute is the right to cross-examination, not the right to face-to-face confrontation.