The Supreme Court, Hearsay, and Crawford: Implications for Child Interviewers

Abstract:     
The purpose of this article is to explain the implications of Crawford for child interviewing. The bottom line is that interviewers should remain committed to best practice; that is, they should continue to pursue approaches that increase the accuracy and completeness of children's reports. It would be a mistake, for example, to stop videotaping interviews in the hopes that this would render interviews non-testimonial. As for prosecutors, Crawford suggests that greater efforts should be made to enable children to testify at trial. In this article, I will briefly review the research on best practices in interviewing, discuss Crawford and the limits it places on testimonial hearsay, and explain how interviewers and prosecutors should best respond.

Accepted Paper Series