Court Opinion

ID: 9752886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:42:15.782868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:24.596939
License: Public Domain

*496NIX, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. For the reasons expressed in my dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Ludwig, 527 Pa. 472, 594 A.2d 281 (1991), I would permit the closed-circuit procedure to be utilized where the trial court makes a case-specific finding of necessity for such a procedure. Under the facts of the instant case, that finding has been made.
On October 31, 1985, appellant was arrested and charged with anally and orally sodomizing his son, Patrick, who was eleven years old in 1982, at the time of the incident. In 1986 both Patrick, then fifteen years old, and his brother Carl, thirteen, testified against appellant at the preliminary hearing.1 The children then were treated by Dr. Nancy Chiswick, a clinical psychologist, who found them to have experienced severe emotional trauma as a result of testifying at the preliminary hearing. Based upon Dr. Chiswick’s findings the Commonwealth petitioned the trial court to permit the children to testify via closed-circuit television.
At a hearing on the Commonwealth’s petition Dr. Chiswick testified that Patrick was totally unable to discuss the abuse in the presence of his father. Dr. Chiswick noted that when asked about the incident, Patrick regressed to extremely immature behavior to avoid having to recall the details of the abuse. She opined that despite four months of intensive therapy Patrick would still require treatment for an indefinite period in the future, and that further physical confrontation would cause the child to suffer severe emotional trauma and would prevent him from being able to focus clearly on the abuse incident. (N.T. 4/10/86 pp. 11-12.)
Dr. Chiswick also testified that Carl had been traumatized by the experience of testifying at the preliminary hearing. She indicated that Carl had expressed fear that if confronted with his father again, he might stutter and *497become totally incapable of relating the substance of his testimony. (N.T. 4/10/86, p. 11, 13-14.)
Dr. Chiswick emphasized that the trauma suffered by the children exceeded the normal apprehension that would be inspired by the courtroom atmosphere. She stressed that the terror experienced by Patrick and Carl was a direct result of the physical confrontation with their father. Based upon her testimony, the trial court ruled that the children would be permitted to testify via closed-circuit television procedures.
Clearly these facts demonstrate the necessity for the procedure employed by the trial court. The case-specific finding recommended by the Supreme Court in Maryland v. Craig, — U.S.-, 110 S.Ct. 3157, 111 L.Ed.2d 666 (1990); see Commonwealth v. Ludwig, supra, (Nix, C.J., dissenting), has been established, and the use of the closed-circuit procedure was proper.
Accordingly, I would affirm the order of the Superior Court.

. Carl was an eyewitness to one count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and was also the victim, in a separate complaint, of sexual abuse at the hands of appellant.