High Court to Review 2 Sex Abuse Cases : Sixth Amendment: At issue in Maryland and Idaho cases is right of accused persons to face their young accusers.

The Supreme Court today agreed to decide whether people accused of child abuse have the right to at least one face-to-face confrontation with their young accusers.

The justices, in two cases of enormous importance for child-abuse prosecutions nationwide, said they will consider reinstating the child-molesting conviction of a Maryland day-care center owner and an Idaho woman’s child-abuse conviction.

Rulings are expected by July.

States have tried several methods to cushion youthful witnesses from the pressures of trial, such as allowing the child to present testimony by videotape or be physically separated from the accused by a screen. Previous Supreme Court rulings have barred the use of such screens, but left open the possibility that other arrangements could be acceptable.

The court has not directly addressed the use of videotaped testimony.

In one of the cases accepted today, the child gave live televised testimony from another room. In the other, an adult who questioned the child privately recounted in court what the child had said. In both cases, the accused abusers were women and the convictions were overturned on appeal.

The Sixth Amendment of the Constitution guarantees that a person accused of a crime be “confronted by the witnesses against him” in a “public trial.”

Legal papers filed with the high court said 41 states have laws protecting child witnesses, using a variety of techniques, including the use of videotaped or closed-circuit televised testimony, as in Maryland; the closing of courtrooms during a child’s testimony, or a “hearsay exception”--the issue in the Idaho case.

The Maryland Sixth Amendment case involves a day-care center operator whose 1987 child sex abuse conviction was overturned because she was denied her right to confront the girl in court.

Sandra Craig was convicted of sexually abusing a 6-year-old girl over a two-year period at Craig’s Country Pre-School in Clarksville, Md.

At issue is the Maryland appeals court’s interpretation of a state law on testimony by closed-circuit television. That court found Craig was denied the right to face her accuser because the child was not in the same room. Craig could see the testimony on a television monitor.

The court ruled that, at some point in a trial, Maryland judges must question youngsters in the presence of the defendant.

The Idaho case concerns Laura Lee Wright, whose conviction for sexually abusing her 2 1/2-year-old daughter was reversed by the Idaho Supreme Court.

The state court ruled her right to confront her accuser was violated when the trial judge allowed testimony from a pediatrician who recounted statements made by the youngster about abuse by Wright and the girl’s father, Robert Giles.