Final Exam Ch.11 pt 3

Question 1

42. What is a children’s advocacy center?

Answer 1

An umbrella organization, independent of the criminal justice system, that brings together child protective services workers, law enforcement officers, the prosecutors office, educators, mental health councelors, and medical personnel in an effort to provide a coordinated response and seamless service delivery to maltreated children.

Question 2

43. What services does a children’s advocacy center offer?

Answer 2

Videotaped forensic interviews.

Question 3

43. What services does a children’s advocacy center offer?

Answer 3

Videotaped forensic interviews.

Question 4

44. Explain “Megan’s Law” and its related provisions.

Answer 4

Public notification whenever a sex offender is released from prison into the community. Ability to track whereabouts of sex offenders in the community.

Question 5

45. What is a “sexually violent predator?”

Answer 5

Most dangerous offenders with the most proclivity for recidivism.

Question 6

46. What kinds of residency restrictions do sex offenders face?

Answer 6

Can’t live within 1,000 feet of a school, daycare, park, or playground.

Question 7

47. What is “The Adam Walsh Act?”

Answer 7

Supersedes all previous federal legislation regarding SORN and introduces a new series of rules and regulations designed to standardize SORN practices and to create the National Sex Offender Registry.

Question 8

48. What is the importance of the federal Supreme Court decision Smith v. Doe (2003)?

Answer 8

It is Civil and not Criminal

Question 9

49. What is civil commitment and what is the importance of the federal Supreme Court decision Kansas v. Hendricks (1997)?

Answer 9

Once a dangerous sex offender completes his or her prison sentence, the state will initiate legal proceedings to confine this person indefinitely in a mental institution. Kansas had distanced the civil commitment procedures form any criminal proceeding and, therefore, the statute was not punitive in nature.

Question 10

50. How did Kansas v. Hendricks (1997) raise objections surrounding due process, double jeopardy, and ex post facto laws?

Answer 10

Hendricks appealed it on these grounds.

Question 11

51. What is the significance of the U.S. Supreme Court case U.S. v. Comstock (2010)?

Answer 11

The defendants in this case maintained that congress had overextended itself and did not have the constitutional power to enact a civil commitment statute for sexual predators. Argument was rejected at a 7-2 margin.

Question 12

52. What four conditions must exist in order to activate an Amber Alert?

Answer 12

1. ) Law enforcement officials must conduct an initial investigation and confirm that a child has been abducted.
2. ) There must be some indication that the child is endangered.
   
   3. ) There must be sufficient info available to make a recovery plausible.
3. ) Case must be entered into the National Crime Information Center, the FBI computerized index of criminal justice info.

Question 13

53. When is it permissible for a judge to close his or her courtroom to the public?

Answer 13

When the victim of a sex offense is testifying concerning that offense in any civil or criminal trial.

Question 14

54. What is the “hearsay rule” and what does it have to do with child maltreatment cases?

Answer 14

Testimony in a court proceeding where the witness does not have direct knowledge of the fact asserted, but knows it only from being told by someone.

Question 15

55. What is an “in camera proceeding” in a child maltreatment case?

Answer 15

Allows a child victim to testify outside of court in a less formal, less threatening surroundings.

Question 16

56. What three objections have critics raised over in camera proceedings in child maltreatment cases?

Answer 16

1. ) Violate their constitutional right to confront and cross-examine witnesses.
   
   2. ) Right of public to have access to the trial.
   3. ) Defendants right to a public trial.