Opinion ID: 1957149
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Standards of admissibility of child's out-of-court statement in sex abuse prosecutions.

Text: There is general agreement that a prerequisite to the admissibility of a child's out-of-court statement concerning sexual abuse is that it possess sufficient indicia of reliability. The standard adopted by the Appellate Division in this case was that the statement be made to a parent or other natural confidant or to a physician or other professional at a time and under circumstances which provide sufficient indicia of reliability to justify admission. 214 N.J. Super. at 297. The Washington statute does not specifically limit the people to whom such a statement may be made but requires the court to conduct a hearing in order to determine that the time, content and circumstances of the statement provide sufficient indicia of reliability. Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 9A.44.120(1) (Supp. 1987). The ABA Recommendations also do not specifically limit the persons to whom such statements may be made, but list as factors to be considered by a court in determining admissibility the age and maturity of the child, the nature and duration of the abuse, the relationship of the child to the offender, the reliability of the assertion, and the reliability of the child or witness. ABA Recommendations, supra, § 4.3 at 5. [6] In this case the trial court made no specific determination concerning the reliability of the child victim's out-of-court statements. We express no view on whether such statements, in the context of the surrounding events and circumstances, possess sufficient indicia of reliability to warrant their admission, that issue to be resolved by the trial court in the event of retrial. There is also general agreement that the proponent of the statement must notify the adverse party sufficiently in advance of trial of the statement's content and his intention to offer it at trial. The Appellate Division, 214 N.J. Super. at 297, the Washington statute, and the ABA Recommendation concur on this requirement. We note, however, that no notification of the prosecutor's intention to introduce the victim's out-of-court statements was provided to defendant in this case. The most difficult question, and one that has received disparate treatment, is whether a child's incompetency to testify at trial should preclude admissibility of the child's out-of-court statement. The Appellate Division's formulation required either that the child testify at trial, or if unavailable to testify within the meaning of Evid.R. 62(6) (defining unavailability to include inability to testify because of a then existing mental disability), that there be corroborative evidence of the acts described in the statement. 214 N.J. Super. at 297. As noted, the trial court in this case, after questioning the child in chambers, concluded that she was incompetent to testify. Since the Appellate Division held the out-of-court statements to be admissible, it evidently concluded that N.R.'s incompetency to testify constituted unavailability pursuant to Evid.R. 62(6), although it did not deal with the issue specifically. The Appellate Division, 214 N.J. Super. at 299, and the ABA Recommendations, supra, § 4.3 at 5, concur that there must be corroborating evidence of the statement if the child is unavailable to testify. The Washington statute requires that the child testify at trial or, if unvailable, that there be corroborative evidence of the act of sexual abuse. § 9A-44-120(2). However, the Supreme Court of Washington has held that the incompetency of a child to testify does not necessarily constitute unavailability for purposes of the Washington statute. In State v. Ryan, 103 Wash. 2d 165, 691 P. 2d 197 (1984) ( en banc ), defendant was convicted of committing indecent liberties on two young boys. At trial neither victim testified, on the basis of stipulations that they were not competent. Out-of-court statements made by one child to his mother and aunt, and by the other child to his mother were admitted pursuant to Washington's then recently adopted tender years exception statute, § 9A.44.120, supra, after the trial court determined that the defendant's confession constituted adequate corroboration of the sexual acts. Defendant challenged his conviction on several grounds, claiming particularly that the admission of the alleged victims' out-of-court statements violated his right of confrontation under the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution. [7] The Washington Supreme Court, invoking the standards established in Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed. 2d 597 (1980), for determining when the admission of hearsay evidence can be reconciled with the requirements of the confrontation clause, observed that Roberts required (1) availability of the declarant for cross-examination or a demonstration of unavailability, and (2) assurances of reliability. State v. Ryan, supra, 103 Wash. 2d at 170, 691 P. 2d at 202. Noting that incompetency and unavailability serve separate purposes, and mean different things, id. at 171, 691 P. 2d at 202, the Court held that a stipulation of incompetency was too uncertain a basis to find unavailability in the context of Roberts' holding that the State has a good-faith obligation to produce the declarant if possible. Id. at 172, 691 P. 2d at 203. Moreover, the Court observed that if the trial court had examined the victims and found them incompetent to testify at trial, the hearsay statements would be too unreliable for admission. Id. at 173, 691 P. 2d at 203. Accordingly, the Washington Supreme Court reversed the convictions, concluding that neither the unavailability nor reliability prongs of the Roberts standard for admission of hearsay had been satisfied. Id. at 179, 691 P. 2d at 207. The issue raised in the Ryan case, i.e., whether a ruling that a child witness is incompetent to testify at trial satisfies the unavailability requirement of Ohio v. Roberts , has generated significant disagreement. Some commentators equate incompetency with unavailability, arguing that a child's incompetency to testify at trial does not negate the reliability of the out-of-court statement or the justification for its admissibility. Note, Minnesota's Hearsay Exception for Child Victims of Sexual Abuse, 11 Wm. Mitchell L.Rev. 799, 815-20 (1985); Note, The Sexually Abused Infant Hearsay Exception: A Constitutional Analysis, 8 J.Juv.L. 59, 70-73 (1984); Note, Sexual Abuse of Children  Washington's New Hearsay Exception, 58 Wash.L. Rev. 813, 826-28 (1983) (citing Lancaster v. People, 200 Colo. 448, 615 P. 2d 720, 723 (1980)). A contrary view holds that it is incongruous for a trial court to conclude that a child's hearsay statement is sufficiently reliable to warrant its admission even though, months after the statement was made, the child is found incompetent to testify. The Georgia child victim hearsay exception apparently reflects this concern, limiting the admissibility of the hearsay statements to those cases where the child is available to testify in the proceedings. Ga. Code Ann. § 24-3-16 (Supp. 1987). Commentators argue that if incompetency satisfies the Roberts test of unavailability, the prosecutor in a child sex abuse case would have little incentive to press for the child's competency to testify at trial. Note, Confronting Child Victims of Sex Abuse: The Unconstitutionality of the Sexual Abuse Hearsay Exception, 7 U. Puget Sound L.Rev. 387, 401-04 (1984); see Note, Two Legislative Innovations, supra, 98 Harv.L.Rev. at 817-22. The resolution suggested by the ABA Recommendations and other authorities is to avoid the incompetency/unavailability dilemma by eliminating the requirement of competency for child sex abuse victims. The ABA Recommendation provides: 4.1 Competency Child victims of sexual abuse should be considered competent witnesses and should be allowed to testify without prior qualification in any judicial proceeding. The trier of fact should be permitted to determine the weight and credibility to be given to the testimony. [ ABA Recommendations, supra § 4.1 at 5.] The Commentary to the ABA Recommendations notes the growing trend among states to adopt their own version of Rule 601 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which abolishes the presumption that a child is incompetent and leaves to the jury the determination of the weight and credibility of a child's testimony. Id. at 30; see Note, Two Legislative Innovations, supra, 98 Harv.L.Rev. at 819 n. 89 (observing that at least thirteen states have adopted an equivalent of Federal Rule 601). The Commentary also cites Professor McCormick for his advocacy of allowing the testimony to come in for what it is worth with cautionary instructions to the jury, since the child may be the only person available who knows the facts. ABA Recommendations § 4.1 at 31. Professor Wigmore's treatise expresses a similar view: A rational view of the peculiarities of child nature, and of the daily course of justice in our courts, must lead to the conclusion that the effort to measure a priori the degrees of trustworthiness in children's statements, and to distinguish the point at which they cease to be totally incredible and acquire suddenly some degree of credibility, is futile and unprofitable.... Recognizing on the one hand the childish disposition to weave romances and to treat imagination for verity, and on the other the rooted ingenuousness of children and their tendency to speak straightforwardly what is in their minds, it must be concluded that the sensible way is to put the child upon the stand to give testimony for what it may seem to be worth. [2 Wigmore, Evidence § 509 at 719 (Chadburn rev. 1979).] Other commentators agree that the liberal use of children's testimony at trial should be encouraged. See Melton, Children's Competency to Testify, 5 Law & Human Behavior 73 (1981); see also State v. R.W., supra, 104 N.J. at 20 n. 2 (noting the clinical evidence that children of the tenderest ages are capable of testifying accurately about the nature of [sexual] abuse and the identity of the abuser). In view of the constitutional concerns that a child's incompetency to testify may not satisfy the unavailability prong of Ohio v. Roberts , relaxation of the competency requirements for testimony by child sex-abuse victims appears to be particularly appropriate. See Note, Two Legislative Innovations, supra, 98 Harv.L.Rev. at 818-19 (arguing that unavailability should be found only if the State demonstrates the impossibility of in-court testimony). The admission into evidence of reliable out-of-court statements by a child victim in a sexual abuse prosecution obviously serves legitimate and important law enforcement interests. However, such a rule threatens the equally significant interests of the defendant, who seeks to exercise the basic rights of confrontation and cross-examination so essential to the jury's duty to assess the credibility of witnesses. Evidence Rule 17 would require the disqualification of a child victim (a)    incapable of expressing himself concerning the matter so as to be understood by the judge and jury   , or (b)    incapable of understanding the duty of a witness to tell the truth. [8] We conclude that the disqualification set forth in paragraph (b) of Evidence Rule 17 should not apply in a sexual abuse prosecution in which the victim's out-of-court statement is offered in evidence. A finding that a child-victim is incapable of understanding the duty    to tell the truth, and thus incompetent, is difficult to reconcile with a ruling that admits into evidence, insulated from cross-examination, the out-of-court statements of the same child made several months prior to trial. Cf. State in Interest of C.A., 201 N.J. Super. 28, 32 (App.Div. 1985) (reversing trial court's admission of children's out-of-court statements to parent as excited utterances but observing that disqualification of the children as witnesses    does not foreclose admission of their [out-of-court] statements.). In our view, a modification of the existing competency requirements for child witnesses in sex-abuse prosecutions would be an essential corollary to a modification of the hearsay rule that would admit into evidence reliable out-of-court statements made by the child victim. As we noted in State v. R.W., supra : Complicating further the quest for truth, prosecutions of incestuous sexual offenses often occur against a background of bitter animosity between the parents of the child, frequently in the context of hateful divorce and custody battles, with each parent inevitably exerting influence on the child. Normal concerns touching upon the child's reliability as a witness are understandably heightened in such a setting. [104 N.J. at 16.] [9] Combining the admissibility of the child's out-of-court statements with a requirement that the child, if available, testify at trial (using when appropriate the closed circuit television procedure authorized by the Legislaure, N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-32.4), will afford the jury an opportunity to evaluate the testimony relating the child's out-of-court statements in the context of the child's communicative skills, demeanor, and credibility as a witness at trial. It also affords the defendant a right of cross-examination and limited confrontation, see N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-32.4, that would be lost if the child were disqualified due to incompetency. If the child is uncooperative and uncommunicative as a witness, the jury, with appropriate instructions from the trial court, could consider that factor in assessing the value to be accorded the child's out-of-court statement. Potential excesses in leading questions or in cross-examination are well within the province of a trial court to control. We are also confident that trial courts will be aware of the possibly traumatic effects on a child of having to describe an act of sexual abuse in a court proceeding, even with the protections afforded by the closed circuit television procedure, and will be appropriately protective of the child's interest. On balance, however, we believe that if a child's out-of-court statement concerning an act of sexual abuse is to be admissible, that child should testify at trial in order to afford the jury an opportunity to assess the child's credibility and to afford the defendant the right of confrontation and cross-examination. [10]