No Written Interrogatories of Texas Child Sex Abuse Victims

     The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that the videotape procedures set out in Article 38.071, § 2 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, including the use of written interrogatories in lieu of live testimony and cross-examination do not satisfy the Sixth Amendment rights of confrontation and cross-examination under the United States’ Supreme Court’s Crawford v. Washington line of cases. Judge Cochran wrote the majority opinion that Judges Price, Womack, Johnson and Alcala joined. Judge Hervey filed an opinion which Judge Keasler joined, stating that closed-circuit television—with live, contemporaneous, cross-examination—would have been acceptable, had it been used in this case. Presiding Judge Keller filed a dissenting opinion, arguing that on these facts Crawford v. Washington and its progeny did not overrule the initial case—Maryland v. Craig—which allowed one-way, closed-circuit television testimony of child witnesses in certain situations. This case, she suggested, qualified for Maryland v. Craig treatment. Judge Meyers dissented without opinio

       They didn’t want to overturn the Seventh Court of Appeals, but SCOTUS would have overturned this case if it had gotten it.
      Hat tip to the Texas District and County Attorneys' Association.