Kentucky v. Stincer
Headline: Court denies emergency stay in dispute over whether an accused person must be allowed at a child victim’s competency hearing, leaving Kentucky’s existing approach and a new state statute in place.
Holding: The Justice denied Kentucky’s emergency stay request, leaving the state court’s approach and a new Kentucky statute that do not require the accused’s presence at child-victim competency hearings in effect while the matter is not reviewed further.
- Allows Kentucky to proceed without requiring accused presence at child competency hearings.
- Keeps the new Kentucky statute for child-witness testimony in effect.
- Makes it unlikely the Supreme Court will review this issue immediately.
Summary
Background
A man accused of child molestation and the State of Kentucky disputed whether the accused must be allowed to be present at a hearing that decides if his child can testify. The Kentucky Supreme Court had concluded that the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation right gave the accused that presence. Kentucky asked the federal Justice to intervene and stay enforcement of the state-court ruling while further review was considered.
Reasoning
Justice Scalia wrote that he doubts the Kentucky court’s view and sees a fair chance the U.S. Supreme Court would find that view wrong. But soon after the state-court decision, the Kentucky Legislature passed a new law with specific procedures for securing testimony from young abuse victims, and the Kentucky Supreme Court later upheld that law. Because the new statute does not require the accused to be present at the competency hearing and no other State has adopted the Kentucky court’s unusual rule, Justice Scalia concluded it was unlikely four Justices would agree to take and review the case now. He therefore refused the State’s request for an emergency stay.
Real world impact
The decision leaves Kentucky’s current procedures and its new statute in effect without a national ruling on the underlying constitutional question. This is a procedural denial, not a final ruling on the constitutional issue, so the legal question could return to the Supreme Court later under different circumstances. The immediate outcome is that Kentucky’s approach to child-witness competency hearings remains operative for now.
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