Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 27, 1990                   TAG: 9006270495
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

ABUSE TESTIMONY SHIELDED

In a decision expected to make it easier to prosecute suspected child abusers, the court said the Constitution allows for exceptions to such potentially traumatic confrontations.

The decision will let states use some techniques to protect minors - particularly those called to testify against their accused abusers - from a face-to-face courtroom confrontation.

More than half the states have enacted such measures already.

The decisions were announced as the court ended its 1989-90 term, which included major decisions on abortion, the right to die, flag burning, political patronage, police efforts to stop drunken drivers, and prayer groups in public schools.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices upheld the child-molesting conviction of a Maryland day-care center owner even though four young children were allowed to testify out of her presence. The children testified over one-way, closed-circuit television.

But by a separate 5-4 vote, the court refused to reinstate an Idaho woman's child-abuse conviction thrown out by the state's highest court because the child did not testify. Rather, a pediatrician testified at the trial about his interview with the 2-year-old alleged victim.

Writing for the court in the Maryland case, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said, "Where necessary to protect a child witness from trauma that would be caused by testifying in the physical presence of the defendant, at least where such trauma would impair the child's ability to communicate, the (Constitution's) confrontation clause does not prohibit use of a procedure" other than a face-to-face confrontation.

She was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Byron R. White, Harry A. Blackmun and Anthony M. Kennedy.

Justices Antonin Scalia, William J. Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and John Paul Stevens dissented.

The Constitution's Sixth Amendment, in part, says, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him."

But states in recent years increasingly have sought to protect young witnesses, particularly those testifying in child-abuse cases.

The number of such cases is growing. More than 2.2 million child-abuse reports were filed in 1988, according to the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse.

Testimony by children on closed-circuit TV, on videotape, through one-way mirrors or behind screens has been allowed in some criminal cases.