Senate OKs Court Use of TV in Child Sex-Abuse Cases

The state Senate on Monday narrowly approved major legislation that would enable child molestation victims under 14 years of age to testify outside the courtroom by means of closed-circuit television.

The emotion-charged proposal by Sen. Art Torres (D-South Pasadena) went to the Assembly, as parents and supporters of children in the McMartin Pre-School child molestation case hugged and embraced each other at the rear of the Senate chamber.

As an urgency bill, which required a two-thirds (27) favorable vote of the Senate and passed on a 28-8 vote, the legislation would take effect immediately upon the signature of Gov. George Deukmejian.

Outside the chamber, John A. Cioffi, a Hermosa Beach city councilman who identified himself as a parent of a McMartin case child, praised the Senate action as “the first step in balancing the scales to where at least the child can tell the story.”

Disputed Issue

Proponents hope that the legislation would spare at least some of the McMartin children from having to confront their accused molesters face-to-face in court. The issue is in dispute, however, with Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp maintaining that the bill could apply in the McMartin case and the Legislature’s lawyer insisting that it could not.

The proposal was introduced Dec. 4, six days before Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Aviva Bobb ruled in the McMartin case against a prosecution motion that sought to allow children to testify by closed-circuit television. She held that no authority exists in law for using closed-circuit TV during a trial.

Basically, the bill would allow a judge to decide if a victim or a witness under the age of 14 could testify in a child molestation case via two-way closed-circuit television. The testimony would be transmitted directly to the courtroom.

Civil libertarians argued, however, that the bill would trample on the constitutional rights of defendants to directly confront witnesses in court and branded the measure an unconstitutional “rush to judgment.”

Legal Tools

Torres argued that the legislation was drafted to make it as “constitutionally pure as possible” and still protect the right of defendants to confront witnesses.

He said it merely sought to provide “contemporary” legal tools, because, he said, he doubts that the framers of the U.S. Constitution “envisioned child molestation as epidemic as it is today.”

One opponent, Sen. Barry Keene (D-Benicia), former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, insisted that television would “hinder and distort the truth-gathering process.” He argued that a camera tightly focused on a child’s face would fail to reflect the child’s total demeanor and would not show “pressuring, coaching and coaxing” off-camera.

However, Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim) argued that television would remove the built-in “intimidation” of a courtroom.

“If you want the truth, you have to create an environment that is free of intimidation,” he said.

Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), chairman of the committee, warned that television testimony would deprive a jury of determining the truth.

“The truth is better understood when you look directly at people and try to assess their veracity,” he said.

Noting that a “no” vote on a child molestation bill would be politically “very tough,” Lockyer philosophically observed, “I guess we (opponents) will have a lot of explaining to do and that’s part of the job too.”

For a youngster to testify via television, a judge would have to decide whether the child’s testimony probably would involve a sexual offense committed with the child or in the child’s presence and whether testifying in the courtroom would threaten the minor with “serious psychological harm.”

Torres said he believes that his bill will win approval of the Assembly Public Safety Committee but added cautiously, “It remains to be seen” if it will be approved by the full Assembly.