If our system causes such
damage to a child in the process of prosecuting the criminal, then change the
system.
That sounds excellent. But like many excellent ideas, it has hidden flaws.
First, it means we have to change a basic provision of the Bill of Rights. Of course we can amend the Constitution, but is this the right issue to do it on?
And no matter what people say about children not lying about abuse, the fact is that they are notiriously manipulatable witnesses. The Buckey case in California is one such, where children testified as to things that clearly never happened. Ditto with the Wenatchee trials. This is nothing new -- go back to the Salem Witch trials where children gave the most absurd stories. If the defendant isn't allowed to question the children, how can you assure that they are telling the truth? (Even then they may not be, because children can be brought to believe that things happened when they didn't at all, but the children believe them and they become truth for the child and he or she testifies accordingly.)
It's not an easy choice, but unless we change our whole philosophy of crime and punishment -- that it is better to let ten guilty people go free than put one innocent person in jail -- and modulate to a system that says if you're probably guilty but we're not sure, you are guilty, what we have may be as good as we're going to get. |
