Deukmejian Signs Bill on Child Abuse TV Testimony

Gov. George Deukmejian has signed into law a controversial emergency measure that will allow some child molestation victims to testify via closed-circuit television, the governor’s office announced Monday.

Prosecutors in the McMartin Pre-School child-abuse case immediately moved to test the new law Monday afternoon by asking the court to let one alleged victim testify by television in the ongoing preliminary hearing.

The law, sought by parents of alleged victims in the McMartin case, gives judges the power to permit children under age 11 to testify by television from outside the courtroom.

“This bill provides a means to help ease the trauma to some children who face having to reopen the terrible memories of sexual abuse in open court,” Deukmejian said in a statement that announced his signing of the measure.

Authored by Sen. Art Torres (D-Pasadena), the legislation was highly controversial because, as some opponents argued, it could deprive defendants in child molestation cases of their constitutional right to confront witnesses against them.

There also has been disagreement in legal circles over whether the law would apply in the McMartin trial, since the alleged crimes took place before the measure became law.

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Lael Rubin, after filing a motion Monday in Los Angeles Municipal Court to allow a 6-year-old girl to testify by closed-circuit television, said that the step was necessary because Raymond Buckey, the chief defendant in the case, had threatened the witness. Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb will hear arguments on the motion June 10.

Rubin said, “This is a child who could not testify in open court, but could testify by way of closed-circuit television.”

The child witness has alleged that Buckey, 26, and his mother, Peggy Mcmartin Buckey, 58, molested her, then killed animals and threatened to do the same to her her parents if she told of the molestations. Seven former teachers at the McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach are charged with 208 counts of molestation and conspiracy and are now undergoing a months-long preliminary hearing to determine if they should stand trial.

Rubin said that depending on the outcome of the first request, the prosecution may ask the court to decide “on a child-by-child basis” which of the remaining 29 children expected to testify in the case should be allowed to do so by TV.

Called Unconstitutional

Rubin said that several of the children who have testified so far have been “terrified in the courtroom and have focused on the defendants seated nearby.”

McMartin defense attorneys said Monday that they believe the new law is unconstitutional, that the accused will not have a fair chance to confront their accusers, and that the law cannot be applied retroactively. Deputy Public Defender Forrest Latiner said that he feared that children testifying by closed-circuit TV would not “be as truthful or accurate.”

A spokesman for Deukmejian said the governor was initially concerned that the bill might go too far in preventing defendants from confronting witnesses against them.

The bill originally would have permitted children under 14 to testify via television if the courtroom experience could psychologically harm them.

But a compromise hashed out in the Assembly lowered the age and placed limits on the use of televised testimony, resolving the problem for the governor and many Democratic opponents.

‘Great Care’

“I am satisfied that great care was taken to sensitively and legally balance the conflicting interests of providing a more comfortable setting for a child’s testimony with a defendant’s constitutional right to confront his or her accuser,” the governor said.

In order to permit televised testimony, a judge must determine that an alleged victim would be unable to testify in a courtroom. The judge would have to find that the child would be prevented from testifying by factors, including:

- Threats against the child or the child’s family.

- Use of a firearm or other deadly weapon during alleged abuse of the child.

- “Great bodily injury” to the child as a result of the abuse.

- Courtroom conduct on the part of the defendant or the defense attorney that prevents the child from continuing to testify.

In cases where closed-circuit testimony is allowed, the judge can require the child to appear in the courtroom to identify the accused or evidence submitted in the case.

During televised testimony, the only people allowed in the room would be a person to provide the child with emotional support, a non-uniformed bailiff and a representative of the court.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Richard C. Paddock in Sacramento and Carol McGraw in Los Angeles.