Supreme Court: What Children Tell Teachers is Admissible in Court
WASHINGTON, June 18 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that statements children make to their teachers are admissible as testimony in court.
The high court ruled unanimously that if a child tells a teacher about a crime and the child is not old enough to testify in court, the statements made to the teacher may be presented in court instead.
The ruling stems from the case Ohio v. Clark. Darius Clark was convicted of abusing his girlfriend’s two children after one of the children, a 3-year-old boy, told his teachers Clark struck him.
That testimony was presented during Clark’s trial, though neither the boy nor any of his teachers appeared on the witness stand.
Clark’s lawyers appealed his conviction, saying the testimony violated a Sixth Amendment clause giving him the right to confront witnesses testifying against him.
The state appellate court overturned Clark’s conviction and the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court’s decision.
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the earlier courts’ rulings, saying the testimony did not violate the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment.
“The question in this case is whether the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause prohibited prosecutors from introducing those statements when the child was not available to be cross examined,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito in the ruling. “Because neither the child nor his teachers had the primary purpose of assisting in Clark’s prosecution, the child’s statements do not implicate the confrontation clause and therefore were admissible at trial.”
