Competency of a witness is crucial and that factor become even more important when the witness is a child

Question

Judges need to consider and evaluate the child's ability to understand the need for truth and ability to remember and recount the events in question. Find the case Government of the Virgin Islands v. Riley 1991 and summarize this case and the outcome regarding this child as a witness.

Answer 1

This case involves a four year old who witnessed the murder of his father. The court found that the child understood the difference between truth and falsehood, it also found that his anxiety created by the courtroom atmosphere made him unable to respond to questioning. The government was granted permission to video tape the deposition as a potential option to use this deposition during the trial via closed-circuit television, thus eliminating the need to have the child present in the courtroom during the trial. However, during the video-taping session, the child was able to identify the suspect but could not complete the entire deposition. At the end he became unresponsive. The finding was that the child was incompetent to stand trial as a witness, but the videotape despite some unresponsiveness would be allowed to be used and upon viewing of the tape a transcript of the deposition would be provided. The allowance of the taped disposition stemmed from previous rulings of witness availability. The child answered the main questions identifying the suspect and the defense attorney's questioning could not invalidate that evidence.