{"id":1976,"date":"2016-02-15T21:31:13","date_gmt":"2016-02-15T21:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=1976"},"modified":"2016-07-03T19:38:39","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T19:38:39","slug":"antonin-scalia-no-sucker-for-childrens-testimony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=1976","title":{"rendered":"Antonin Scalia no sucker for children\u2019s testimony"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Justice
Justice Antonin Scalia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Feb. 15, 2016<\/p>\n

\u201c(NYU law professor Rachel) Barkow points to Scalia\u2019s (1990) dissent in Maryland v. Craig<\/a>,\u00a0where he railed against the court for permitting \u2018a child witness to testify via closed circuit television in a sex abuse case,\u2019 instead of requiring the child to testify live in the courtroom where she would be subjected to cross-examination by the defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Constitution, Scalia wrote, does not authorize judges to \u2018conduct a cost-benefit analysis of clear and explicit constitutional guarantees, and then to adjust their meaning to comport with our findings.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 From \u201cAntonin Scalia\u2019s Other Legacy: He was often a friend of criminal defendants<\/a>\u201d\u00a0by Robert Smith at Slate (Feb. 15)<\/em><\/p>\n

Scalia\u2019s ferocious dissent in Craig in defense of the Sixth Amendment\u2019s \u201cconfrontation clause<\/a>\u201d\u00a0featured this jugular-seeking missile:<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of (the court majority\u2019s) subordination of explicit constitutional text to currently favored public policy, the following\u00a0scene can be played out in an American courtroom for the first time in two centuries:<\/p>\n

\u201cA father whose young\u00a0daughter has been given over to the exclusive custody of his estranged wife, or a mother whose young son\u00a0has been taken into custody by the State’s child welfare department, is sentenced to prison for sexual abuse\u00a0on the basis of testimony by a child the parent has not seen or spoken to for many months, and the guilty\u00a0verdict is rendered without giving the parent so much as the opportunity to sit in the presence of the child,\u00a0and to ask, personally or through counsel, \u2018It is really not true, is it, that I \u2013 your father (or mother) whom\u00a0you see before you \u2013 did these terrible things?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps that is a procedure today’s society desires; perhaps\u00a0(though I doubt it) it is even a fair procedure; but it is assuredly not a procedure permitted by the\u00a0Constitution….\u201d<\/p>\n

Further on, Scalia cited a 1983 prosecution in Jordan, Minn<\/a>.,\u00a0that may have been first of the \u201csatanic ritual abuse\u201d wave.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs children continued to be interviewed,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthe list of accused citizens grew….There is no doubt that some sexual abuse took place in Jordan, but there is no reason to believe it was as widespread as charged….\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LRDCC20\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feb. 15, 2016 \u201c(NYU law professor Rachel) Barkow points to Scalia\u2019s (1990) dissent in Maryland v. Craig,\u00a0where he railed against the court for permitting \u2018a child witness to testify via closed circuit television in a sex abuse case,\u2019 instead of requiring the child to testify live in the courtroom where she would be subjected to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1976"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2335,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976\/revisions\/2335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}