Court Opinion

ID: 9624869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:20:05.80145+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:56.052570
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.
Justice Huntley in his dissent conclusively demonstrates that the pediatrician’s recitation of the child’s testimony was inad-missable hearsay and violates the right to confront witnesses. The trial court found that the three year old child was INCOMPETENT TO TESTIFY AT TRIAL! How, then, could she have made “reliable” statements six months earlier to Dr. Jambura when she was only two and one-half years old?
It is necessary to go even farther than Justice Huntley. In cases like this the violation of the right to confront the alleged victim can never be harmless. A fundamental tenet of our criminal justice system guarantees the defendant the right to confront his or her accusers in open court through cross-examination. As the United States Supreme Court stated in Davis v. Alaska:
The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right of an accursed in a criminal prosecution ‘to be confronted with the witnesses against him.’ This right is secured for defendants in state as well as federal criminal proceedings under Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965). Confrontation means more than being allowed to confront the witness physically. ‘Our cases construing the [confrontation] clause hold that a primary interest secured by it is the right of cross-examination.’ Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, 418, 85 S.Ct. 1074, 1076, 13 L.Ed.2d 934 (1965). Professor Wigmore stated:
‘The main and essential purpose of confrontation is to secure for the opponent the opportunity of cross-examination. The opponent demands confrontation, not for the idle purpose of gazing upon the witness, or of being gazed upon by him, but for the purpose of cross-examination, which cannot be had except by the direct and personal putting of questions and obtaining immediate answers.’ (Emphasis in original.) 5 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 1395, p. 123 (3d ed.1940).
Cross-examination is the principal means by which the believability of a witness and the truth of his testimony are tested.
415 U.S. 308, 315-16, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 1110, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974).
In child abuse cases there are often “no witnesses except the victim.” Pennsylvania v. Richie, 480 U.S. 39, 60, 107 S.Ct. 989, 1003, 94 L.Ed.2d 40 (1987). Without the opportunity to cross-examine such a witness, no trial can be fair, and consequently, no error can be harmless.