Summary
U. S. Supreme Court decision to reinstate the 1988 conviction of a Nevada child molester. A jury found Marvin Bockting guilty of engaging in various sex acts with his six-year-old stepdaughter. Because the child was too emotionally upset to testify, her tape-recorded description of the incident was introduced at trial in addition to medical evidence and Bockting's incriminating statements. The applicable federal rules at the time allowed the child's taped statement (hearsay) in lieu of her direct testimony. Two years later, the Supreme Court sent Bockting's case back for a determination of the statement's trustworthiness under a new standard. In 1993, the Nevada Court ruled that the statement was trustworthy. In 2003, the Supreme Court's decision in Crawford v. Washington announced a new rule barring "testimonial" hearsay statements from trial. In February 2005, the Ninth Circuit applied the new rule retroactively to overturn Bockting's conviction. Before the Supreme Court, CJLF argued that only rules fundamental to a fair trial can be applied retroactively and that the change in hearsay does not meet that standard. The high court agreed. [CJLF brief in PDF.]
