Court Opinion

ID: 9761010
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:28:18.007002+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:19.612276
License: Public Domain

Otis H. Turner, Justice, dissenting. Society regards nothing as more repugnant than the sexual abuse of a minor. Because of the emotions such misconduct evokes, we must take care to assure, when it is alleged, that all of the accused’s rights are protected. This is especially imperative since Ark. Code Ann. § 16-44-203 permits, at the prosecutor’s request, the testimony of the minor to be taken by video tape and introduced at trial. Further, the testimony of the victim does not require corroboration. Sales v. State, 291 Ark. 338, 724 S.W.2d 469 (1987). In this instance, the trial court conducted voir dire of the seven-year-old minor and refused to permit counsel for the accused to conduct further voir dire until he interrogated the child on cross-examination. Since the minor was being permitted to testify by video, away from the tensions of the courtroom — the very reason why the testimony is permitted by video tape in the first place — and her testimony would have been sufficient for conviction without further corroboration, my sense of fairness compels me to conclude that counsel for the accused should have been permitted to test the competency of the minor without having to do so on cross-examination. Any person who has ever tried a case to a jury knows the inherent difficulty of cross-examining a child. Competency to testify is a preliminary matter to be decided by the trial court, and the court’s decision is subject to review here. I would reverse this cause to permit the defense counsel to conduct a reasonable voir dire to test the competency of the witness as a preliminary matter, without having to run the appreciable risk of alienating the jurors by conducting a meaningful voir dire as a part of cross-examination. My concerns are magnified by the circumstances of the present case, where the minor’s testimony was replete with inconsistency. I respectfully dissent. Holt, C.J., and Newbern, J., join this dissent.