Taped testimony for child sex abuse victims

COMPASSION CAN lead Alabama senators to follow the House in removing the inhumane legal rule that finds sexually abused children facing their dangerous abusers in court.

Alabama Attorney General Troy King has pushed legislation that would allow children under 16 to testify on videotape, their testimony being shown in court while they remain secure in another room.

As Mr. King stressed, often the children have been threatened with death if they tell anyone about the abuse, and yet the law requires them to tell the details of the assault while sitting across the room from the people who abused them.

"There's nothing more traumatizing in the world," Rep. Cam Ward, an Alabaster Republican, said. Rep. Ward is sponsor of the legislation that would allow the taped testimony.

Indeed, allowing video-taped testimony could mean more sexual predators will face justice.

An article in the Hofstra Law Review correctly explains, "Parents are reluctant to put their children through the trauma of telling and re-telling the details of the abuse and prosecutors are often reluctant to proceed because children are generally perceived as ineffective and unreliable witnesses." This way, victims would never have to face their abusers in the courtroom.

But the proposed legislation protects the rights of the accused, because defense attorneys would be allowed to cross-examine the children while the tape is being made.

In allowing videotaped testimony, Alabama would join 32 other states that recognize the horror child victims face going into open court with their abuser at the defendant's table.

The House approved Rep. Ward's bill unanimously, and the Senate should do so, too.