The Child Witness in Sexual Abuse Cases in Maine: Presentation, Impeachment, and Controversy

In any sexual abuse trial, the entry of the child into the courtroom is a dramatic moment. The large door to the courtroom opens. A small child enters, accompanied by a victim advocate who walks with the child toward the witness stand. At the end of the public seats, the child is turned over to a court officer who escorts the child to the witness stand. In the typically high-ceilinged, expansive courtroom where we conduct our jury trials, the small child looks even smaller. Some children slouch in the witness chair, as if they were trying to hide. The jurors look at the child with barley disguised sympathy. Some smile the way adults smile at children who are in strange or uncomfortable settings. Others look away from the child, fearful that they will lose the stoic demeanor of neutral jurors. For the defendant, this must be a terrible moment. The sympathy of the jury is almost palpable. How could any juror resist that tremulous, barely audible voice and the child's flushed face as the prosecutor begins the slow, patient questioning? That sympathetic response will become more pronounced as the child endures embarrassing questions that bring forth an unimaginable story. The defendant fears this child. This child is an accuser. For defense counsel, the presence of the child is also painful. Counsel must attack the credibility of the child without appearing to attack, and undo the instinctive sympathies of the jury for the child without destroying all sympathy for his client. Somehow that jury must come to disbelieve a child whose pained presence in that cold, ceremonial courtroom shouts truth. This scene is an increasingly familiar one in Maine's courtrooms and in courtrooms throughout the country. This trend has been well documented. In almost all of these cases the essence of the trial is a credibility contest between the child and the defendant. That fact may not seem so surprising. Many trials are a credibility contest between key witnesses. However, the sexual abuse trial is distinguished by the extent of that contest between the defendant and an alleged victim.