Child Abuse & Child Witness Testimony Flashcards
What article was a major factor in all 50 states mandating child abuse reporting in 1966, followed by the passage of the 1974 Child Abuse Treatment and Prevention Act?
Henry Kemp’s “The Battered Child Syndrome” in 1962
What is the most commonly referred form of child abuse?
Neglect
Most common type of child abuse injury
Skin injury
Most common cause of death from child abuse
Neurologic injury
Level of suspicion required for reporting of child abuse
Reason to believe (and it must be a good faith effort)
Landeros v Flood holding
Doctors are expected to report child abuse
Deshaney v Winnebago County DSS
There is no duty for social services to protect a child unless the child is placed in social services custody
Standard of proof for terminating parental rights
Clear and convincing evidence (from Santoski v Kramer)
Santoski v Kramer holding
The standard of proof for terminating parental rights is Clear and Convincing evidence
3 components of memory
Encoding, storage, retrieval
Which component of memory is most affected by bad interviewing techniques
Retrieval
Most common recall error a preschooler might make?
Error of omission
Types of recall errors
Errors of omission (leaving things out) & errors if commission (adding false details)
McMartin techniques
Suggestive leading, asked and answered, inviting speculation, “other people”, positive & negative consequences
Manny Morales study of susceptibility results
66 kids in daycare, Manny comes in with silly hat, reads a book, puts a sticker on hand, gives cupcake. Bad techniques lead to false reports within a matter of minutes. Social reinforcement is more powerful than suggestive questioning, and the combo is even more powerful. Once you get a kid into a yes paradigm, they’re more likely to say yes to subsequent questions.
Which Amendment includes the Right to Confrontation?
6th
Do you have the 6th Amendment right to confront an accuser who is a child?
If there is a showing that coming to court would cause undue distress to the child, other mechanisms for their testimony can be explored
children’s competency to testify
Under English Common Law, children <7yo were not allowed to testify.
Rule 601 of the FRE abolished the special requirement that children be shown to be competent to testify. Provides that “every person is competent to be a witness except as otherwise provided in these rules…”
1. Sufficient intelligence, understanding, and ability to observe, recall, and communicate events.
2. An ability to comprehend the seriousness of an oath.
3. Appreciation of the necessity to tell the truth.
People v Stritzinger
California Supreme Court, 1983
Defendant’s 6A rights were violated by allowing the AV not to testify based solely on mom’s testimony re: the effect of her dtr’s mental state, so the AV’s preliminary hearing testimony was erroneously admitted.
The therapist was under no statutory obligation to report info learned from Mr. Stritzinger after she had already reported the alleged abuse.
Facts: Mr. Stritzinger sexually abused his 13yo stepdaughter, she went to counseling and told her therapist, who immediately reported it. The therapist then learned add’l info from Stritzinger himself, which a sheriff told her was no longer privileged so she revealed.
Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (AACWA)
Goal: to decrease the # of children in foster care.
Required states to make “reasonable efforts” to reunite children w/their biological families.
Adoption and Safe Families Act
passed in 1997 to address problems with the AACWA.
Delineates factors for terminating parental rights when reasonable efforts by the State have failed to ameliorate the conditions and/or parental behaviors that led to State interventions.
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act
created the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect
