Opinion ID: 1745742
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: competency of a five-year-old to testify

Text: The first two contentions concern the evaluation of five-year-old Ryan to testify and the finding of the trial court that Ryan was competent to testify. At the outset it is appropriate to set forth the following chronology of events concerning these competency issues: June 2, 1983, the victim was killed; February 10, 1984, a defense motion to employ an independent expert to evaluate Ryan and testify at the child's competency hearing was granted; February 20, 1984, the defense expert prepared and filed a report from all records and depositions given him by defense counsel; February 22, 1984, the court held a hearing to determine Ryan's competency to testify at the trial. The judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney all questioned the child. The defense expert also testified at this proceeding. The court found Ryan understood the duty to tell the truth and found his testimony to be a matter of credibility for the jury. On May 7, 1984, the state's expert conducted an additional evaluation of Ryan, giving him the following six psychological tests: a Stanford-Binet  LM; a Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test  Revised Form L; a Performance Scale of the WISC-R; a Draw-A-Person Test; a Child's Sentence Completion Test; and a Three-Wishes Test. On May 15, 1984, the defense expert received the raw data from these tests. On May 17, 1984, the trial court granted the defense expert one hour to examine the child, justifying the limitation on the basis that the state's expert took only one hour for his examination, excluding the time necessary to give the above tests. Appellant, in his first point, asserts his expert was improperly limited in the amount of time he was able to spend with the child. He argues a one-hour time period was arbitrary and an unrealistic time limitation, depriving his expert of an opportunity to conduct an appropriate professional evaluation of the child. Appellant argues there was never any showing that interviews or evaluation by the defense would be more potentially harmful to Ryan than the interviews by the representatives of the state. Appellant contends that, even assuming the state expert had seen Ryan for only one hour, the trial court's refusal to allow the defense expert to examine the child for a longer period of time created a fundamental denial of appellant's due process rights. We reject this contention. The record reflects that the court granted the defense request to pay for an expert and allow him to conduct his own examination in order to afford the defense an opportunity to challenge the child's competency to testify. Although the trial court limited the examination of Ryan to one hour, the judge noted that if the expert found anything to indicate there were problems with the child, he would reconsider. All the records of the child's previous examinations were made available to the defense expert, including the tests administered by the state expert. We find no due process violation. There is no showing that the defense expert believed other tests were necessary, and his conclusions did not indicate any abnormality or need for further examination. The second point concerns the asserted trial court error in allowing Ryan to testify at trial. At common law, a person under fourteen years of age was not considered a competent witness in any controverted matter. Radiant Oil Co. v. Herring, 146 Fla. 154, 200 So. 376 (1941). That rule has been abandoned in this state, and the prime test of testimonial competence of an infant witness is his or her intelligence, rather than his or her age, and, in addition, whether the child possesses a sense of obligation to tell the truth. Bell v. State, 93 So.2d 575 (Fla. 1957). The test has been reiterated in multiple district court of appeal decisions. Garrard v. State, 335 So.2d 603 (Fla.3d DCA 1976), cert. denied, 342 So.2d 1101 (Fla. 1977); Fernandez v. State, 328 So.2d 508 (Fla. 3d DCA), cert. denied, 341 So.2d 1081 (Fla. 1976); McKinnies v. State, 315 So.2d 211 (Fla. 1st DCA 1975); Harrold v. Schluep, 264 So.2d 431 (Fla. 4th DCA 1972). It is the established law of this state that if an infant witness has sufficient intelligence to receive a just impression of the facts about which he or she is to testify and has sufficient capacity to relate them correctly, and appreciates the need to tell the truth, the infant should be permitted to testify. Williams v. State, 400 So.2d 471 (Fla. 5th DCA), affirmed 406 So.2d 1115 (Fla. 1981). It is within the discretion of the trial judge to decide whether an infant of tender years has sufficient mental capacity and sense of moral obligation to be competent as a witness. Except when there is an abuse of that discretion, the trial court's decision will not be disturbed. See Rutledge v. State, 374 So.2d 975 (Fla. 1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 913, 100 S.Ct. 1844, 64 L.Ed.2d 267 (1980). The trial judge in the instant case personally examined Ryan, in addition to hearing testimony and receiving reports from the experts regarding Ryan's ability to testify. The state expert expressed the view that the child possessed suitable capabilities to be allowed to testify. The defense expert testified that Ryan appeared to be an average five-and-one-half to six-year-old child, who showed signs of suffering from mild depression, and that he responded to questions as a five-year-old generally does. The defense expert stated, however, that in his view Ryan was not capable of recalling events and testifying accurately about events which occurred six to nine months ago, and that an average six-year-old child is not able to understand the impact of telling the truth in a courtroom proceeding, nor to appropriately understand his role in such a proceeding. He stated that in his opinion, which he believed was supported by scientific studies, a mental age of at least seven years old is required to understand and participate knowingly and understandably in a judicial oath. Further, he believed no child under six years of age is able to clearly and unequivocally separate fantasy from reality, and, in his view, there would be an intermixing of fact and fantasy in Ryan's testimony. He was of the opinion that Ryan's testimony was somewhat affected by fantasy, but he could not say to what degree. The appellant also contends that there are multiple inconsistencies in the stories told by Ryan since his mother was killed, and these inconsistencies render his testimony unreliable. We find that the trial judge was thorough and careful in his evaluation of Ryan, and clearly recognized the importance of the child's testimony in this proceeding. His determination was proper and he did not abuse his judicial discretion in allowing Ryan to testify. We note that most of the critical facts supplied by Ryan's testimony are either unrefuted or corroborated; particularly, that the man who entered the house and shot his mother was unknown to him, and that the man who shot his mother left the house and entered a van which was red and white in color. The record reflects that the trial judge heard testimony from experts regarding Ryan's ability to testify. He personally examined Ryan extensively. He found Ryan sufficiently intelligent to be capable of expressing himself concerning this matter and also found that Ryan understood his duty to tell the truth. We find the inconsistencies in Ryan's various statements were not so egregious as to require a total rejection of his testimony. The inconsistencies were nothing more than what you would expect from a five- or six-year-old child and, in our view, did not affect the material portions of his testimony. We further find that everything done with the child in this instance was to assure an accurate reporting of his observations and impressions. The critical facts in this case are not totally dependent on the child's observations. The neighbor, Thornton, not only heard the shots and saw the man run from the direction of the house, but he intentionally put himself in a position where he could observe the man, took the tag number of the man's vehicle, and a day later positively identified the appellant as the man he had seen. We find no abuse of discretion in allowing Ryan to testify in this case.