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

DATE: THURSDAY, June 28, 1990                   TAG: 9006280271
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

JUSTICES SHIELD CHILD WITNESSES IN ABUSE CASES

People charged with child abuse have no guaranteed right to face-to-face confrontations with their young accusers if the children would suffer emotional trauma as a result, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

In a pair of 5-4 rulings, the court gave tacit approval to the constitutionality of measures taken by many states to spare children from such confrontations.

Those include using videotaped testimony, testimony by one-way closed circuit television and even testimony by doctors and others who interviewed alleged abuse victims.

"A state's interest in the physical and psychological well-being of child-abuse victims may be sufficiently important to outweigh, at least in some cases, a defendant's right to face his or her accusers in court," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the court.

Concluding its 1989-90 term, the court also upheld federal policies that favor minorities in awarding broadcast licenses, a major victory for affirmative action.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices said preferential Federal Communications Commission policies do not discriminate unlawfully against whites. The court did not address the issue of women's rights, but FCC affirmative action policies treat women and minorities almost identically.

In a case from Florida, the court said the commission could give special, favorable consideration to minorities in awarding a television station license. And in a case from Connecticut, the court upheld the commission's "distress-sale" policy, which allows a broadcaster faced with the loss of his license to sell to a minority-owned business at 75 percent of market value.

In other rulings, the court:

Limited the power of environmentalists to sue in federal court to prevent opening of federal lands to commercial development.

Upheld Arizona's death penalty law in a decision that also removes a constitutional shadow from similar laws in Idaho and Montana.

Ruled in a Maryland case that most of the nation's post offices may ban all soliciting on their property.

The child-abuse decisions, in cases from Maryland and Idaho, are expected to make it easier to prosecute people on such charges.

The number of 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.

"This is a victory for children," said Joyce Strom of the Child Welfare League of America after learning of the rulings. "This is a step in the right direction of strengthening a judicial system to protect children and acknowledge their special need."

Writing for the court in the Maryland case, O'Connor said, "That the face-to-face confrontation requirement is not absolute does not, of course, mean that it may easily be dispensed with."

She added: "A defendant's right . . . may be satisfied . . . only where denial of such confrontation is necessary to further an important public policy and judges may shield children from such confrontations only when substantial emotional trauma - not mere nervousness or reluctance - would result."

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

But by a separate 5-4 vote, the court refused to reinstate a Boise, Idaho, woman's child-abuse conviction thrown out by the state's highest court because the child did not testify.

by CNB