Opinion ID: 2614932
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the constitutionality of nrs. 51.385

Text: NRS 51.385, in its entirety, provides: 51.385 Admissibility; notice of unavailability or inability of child to testify. 1. In addition to any other provision for admissibility made by statute or rule of court, a statement made by a child under the age of 10 years describing any act of sexual conduct performed with or on the child is admissible in a criminal proceeding regarding that sexual conduct if the: (a) Court finds, in a hearing out of the presence of the jury, that the time, content and circumstances of the statement provide sufficient circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness; and (b) Child either testifies at the proceeding or is unavailable or unable to testify. 2. If the child is unavailable or unable to testify, written notice must be given to the defendant at least 10 days before the trial of the prosecution's intention to offer the statement in evidence. The statute, enacted in 1985, was designed to address mounting societal concerns over what is generally perceived to be the rapidly growing menace of child sexual abuse. Usually, the younger the child, the greater the difficulty in achieving criminal accountability because of the sequestered setting in which the crime is usually committed, and the limited ability of very young victims to communicate the nature and extent of their travails. Sexual crimes involving children of tender years thus strain the capacity and flexibility of the criminal justice system to sensitivelyand constitutionallyaccommodate effective prosecution. Fortunately, it has been determined that the Confrontation Clause does not require that a defendant be given the absolute right to confront and cross-examine adverse witnesses. Thus, in Wright, the Court observed that [w]e reaffirmed only recently that `[w]hile a literal interpretation of the Confrontation Clause could bar the use of any out-of-court statements when the declarant is unavailable, this Court has rejected that view as unintended and too extreme.' Wright, 497 U.S. at 813, 110 S.Ct. at 3145 (quoting both Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, 182, 107 S.Ct. 2775, 2782, 97 L.Ed.2d 144 (1987), and Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 63, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 2537, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980)); see also Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836, 110 S.Ct. 3157, 111 L.Ed.2d 666 (1990) (where necessary, Confrontation Clause permits the admission of hearsay statements despite inability of defendant to confront declarant at trial). Having thus concluded long ago that the Confrontation Clause does not invariably require the right to confront, the Supreme Court more recently announced two criteria for the admissibility of hearsay statements that will satisfy Sixth Amendment constraints where the declarant is unavailable for cross-examination. First, the Confrontation Clause usually requires the prosecution to demonstrate that the declarant is unavailable. Second, upon a showing of unavailability, the hearsay statement may be admitted if: (1) the statement satisfies the indicia of a firmly rooted hearsay exception; or (2) the statement reflects particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 66, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 2539. [5] Facially, NRS 51.385 satisfies the Roberts criteria for admissibility despite the unavailability of the declarant and the resultant lack of opportunity to confront. We recognize that the hearsay exception created by the statute is not firmly rooted in the law of evidence. However, it does require a finding validated by a special hearing that the time, content and circumstances of the statement provide sufficient circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness. NRS 51.385(1)(a) (emphasis added). The statutory language is designed, by reference to time, content and circumstances, to provide particularized guarantees of a statement's trustworthiness. We therefore conclude that NRS 51.385 is constitutional on its face. [6]