NCJ Number
123242
Journal
Pepperdine Law Review Volume: 16 Issue: 3 Dated: (1989) Pages: 709-735
Date Published
1989
Length
27 pages
Annotation
The U.S. Supreme Court's holding in Coy v. Iowa (1988), in which a screen between child victims/witnesses of sexual abuse and the defendant in the courtroom was ruled to violate the confrontation clause, is infected with faulty reasoning and is inconsistent with contemporary, mainstream confrontation-clause analysis.
Abstract
The Court majority reasoned that the confrontation clause requires that the defendant and accusatory witnesses meet literally face-to-face in the courtroom. This interpretation of the confrontation clause is not supported by logic nor legal precedent. Additionally, conditioning the use of a protective child-shield statute at trial on a particular showing of need may create an insurmountable burden for States with legitimate, vital interests to protect. The Court failed to define what purpose could be served by granting a criminal defendant the right to face-to-face confrontation while it ignored the need to protect child victim/witnesses. The Court majority's unsupported discussion of how the new addition to the right of confrontation will facilitate proper and effective use of cross-examination is illogical and erroneous. 196 footnotes.