Criminal Procedure - Presumed Guilty: The Use of Videotaped and Closed-Circuit Televised Testimony in Child Sex Abuse Prosecutions and the Defendant\u27s Right to Confrontation - Coy v. Iowa

Abstract

This Note proposes that those statutes which permit admission of videotaped testimony and most uses of closed-circuit televised testimony violate a criminal defendant\u27s sixth amendment right to confront his accusers. In Coy v. Iowa, the United States Supreme Court recently held that one state\u27s practice of shielding the defendant from the view of the child witness during the child\u27s testimony violated the defendant\u27s right to confrontation. Following the Court\u27s analysis, this Note discusses the various problems arising from the use of videotaped or closed-circuit televised testimony. Concluding that the admission of such testimony is not a constitutionally permissible substitute for face to face, physical confrontation, this Note will offer alternative solutions to the problem of protecting the child witness without infringing the constitutional rights of the criminal defendant